POMO RV Park, Ft. Bragg, CA, to Sounds of the Sea RV Park, Trinidad, CA:  Left this morning at 10:15.  Wanted to get out earlier, but we got talking with our neighbors and ended up leaving later than we wanted.  They convinced us to take the PCH over to the 101 instead of Rt. 20 because of a long, seven-mile pull up a 10% grade on Rt. 20.  So we took the PCH along the beautiful coast and through the mountains on that twisty, windy road to where the PCH ends at the 101.  Then took the 101 north through the redwood-covered mountains along a beautiful river.  We didn’t get back to the coast until Eureka.  Our park is very nice.  We back up to the trees on a bluff overlooking the Pacific.  Very nice.  We didn’t get here until 2:30 and were set up by 3:00.  A long drive since most of it was at 25 MPH.  After setting up we just relaxed reading and watching TV.  62 here on the coast.  85 up in the mountains.

A doe and two fawns we encountered by the Cabrillo Light

Love these old fences.

Pretty wild flowers everywhere.

Pretty beach down there.

Marine layer coming in again.

POMO RV Park, Ft. Bragg, CA:  Drove north up the coast this morning to the intersection of the 101.  The PCH here wasn’t bad at all until we went away from the coast and headed up over the mountains in a beautiful redwood forest.  Stopped at the Redwood Grove picnic area and walked the trail through old-growth redwood trees by a beautiful little stream.  Amazing!  There were a lot of old and rusted logging implements scattered around.  Continued on the PCH through one hair-pin turn after another.  Every once in a while we’d get a glimpse of a beautiful valley below us.  To go back we decided to take the 101 south to Willits and then west on Rt. 20.  Had a late lunch at the Lumberjack Café in Willits and had the best meal.  Then drove the 30 miles on Rt. 20 over to Ft. Bragg which took almost an hour.  It was pretty windy up and down steep hills, but it was a lot wider with more turnouts for us to pull over and let others pass.  So we’ll take this route tomorrow with the fifth-wheel in tow.  It was 87 up in the mountains.  62 back at our park. 

Beach at Ft. Bragg

Beach at Ft. Bragg

The beautiful, rocky coast.

We're told the Oregon coast is even prettier--can't imagine!

Wild flowers everywhere!

Pretty trail through the redwoods.  Ferns are shoulder high!

Giant redwood!

Old-growth redwood.

POMO RV Park, Ft. Bragg, CA:  Drove south down the Pacific Coast Highway to Gualala.  This coast is stunning—especially where the rivers flowing through little gorges empty into the Pacific.  There are several really high bridges over these estuaries—much like the much photographed Bixby Creek bridge in Big Sur.  Mike drove down the coast and I drove back.  We stopped at a couple of lighthouses and as many other places where we could safely pull over.  It started out very cloudy but cleared off nicely.  Still only in the 60s, but the sun helps.  We stopped at the little town of Pt. Arena and had lunch at the Chowder House on the little bay.  A beautiful drive with the rugged coast on one side and the golden fields and large ranches on the other.  One huge ranch with an elaborate, gated entrance even had its own air strip.  I loved some of the really old farm houses which have been lovingly maintained over the past 100 or so years.  Back to our park by 5:00 and relaxed the rest of the day.

Cabrillo Pt. Light

Pt. Arena Light

Coast around Pt. Arena

Our little home away from home.

One of the rivers emptying into the Pacific.

Cuffy Cove--spectacular!

Another spectacular view.

Beautiful and rugged.

The beautiful golden fields.

San Francisco RV Resort, Pacifica, CA, to POMO RV Park, Ft. Bragg, CA:  Left this morning at around 9:30 and headed north on Rt. 1 across the Golden Gate one last time and then the 101 north to Cloverdale under a cloudy sky.  Then we took Rt. 128 northwest which was a windy, twisty road up through the hills.  A beautiful drive through a mixed conifer and hardwood forest.  We pulled over at an entrance to someone’s ranch to let the traffic behind us go by.  It was so pretty and peaceful there.  A nice sunny day now that we drove out of the marine layer.  And warm—by their standards anyway—68 degrees.  Maybe we’re getting inured to the cooler weather out here.  There were a lot of vineyards on this road.  We could have drank our way west.  Well, I could have anyway.  Mike was driving.  When we got closer to the coast we started going through a stunning redwood forest.  It was a beautiful, magical place of huge redwoods, the forest floor covered in a verdant layer of  dark green thick moss and huge ferns.  Primeval.  I wanted to put on my hiking boots and hike in this beautiful place.  We finally got to the Pacific Coast Highway for a short 20 miles to Ft. Bragg.  The coast seems different here—what little we saw of it since we couldn’t pull over at any of the viewing areas with the fifth wheel in tow.  There seems to be more little bays and the ocean seemed flat.  Tomorrow we’ll go exploring.  Made chili for dinner.  This new park we’re in is great.  It’s more like a national forest campground.  We’re in a really private site surrounded by pines and other trees.  But we have full hook-ups.  Mostly in the mid-60s today. We got here and were set up by 2:30.  The drive took a while.  Can’t go very fast on those twisty roads.  But so beautiful!

On the PCH south of Ft. Bragg

A little bay on the PCH

San Francisco RV Resort, Pacifica, CA:    Another sunny, pretty morning.  We’ve been really lucky as far as the weather goes since we’ve been here.  Got the laundry out of the way and then around 1:00 we headed up the highway a couple of exits to the BART station.  Took the BART up to the Powell Station and then had planned on taking a Powell Street cable car, but the queues to get tickets were bad, and then you had to queue up to get on a car.  So we walked up Powell, stopped at Union Square for a while and then continued on to Chinatown and had a late lunch at a great restaurant.  Walked around some more and then back to the BART station and back to our park.  A great way to get downtown.  Tomorrow we leave for Ft. Bragg which is about 180 miles north on the coast. 

Chinatown

One of the street lights in Chinatown

The beautiful Tiffany dome in Neiman Marcus department store--Union Square, SF

Tiburon

San Francisco RV Resort, Pacifica, CA:  Our objective was to drive to Muir Woods today and then have lunch in Tiburon.  Back on the PCH which is a twisty, windy, narrow road up through the hills.  There were a lot of bicyclists on this road.  It’s in the 50s, foggy, and windy.  No shoulders on this road.  And these people are up there biking.  Their legs were huge.  Masochistic if you ask me.  When we got to Muir Woods there was no place to park.  They were parking on the road as far as 2 miles from the entrance.  Decided to forget that.  Way too many people out here.  Drove to Tiburon which is one peninsula over from Sausalito.  Drove the whole peninsula taking in the beautiful homes and vistas.  We had lunch in a little restaurant with a view of San Francisco across the bay.  Drove back and sat outside on our bluff reading for a while until the fog rolled in.  Did some grocery shopping and had a light dinner at an Italian restaurant in Pacifica.  Mostly in the 60s today.  

View of San Francisco from our restaurant at Tiburon

San Francisco RV Resort, Pacifica, CA:  Today we drove the PCH north of San Francisco.  Got on the 101 and then Rt. 1 which eventually ends up on 19^th Street on the western side of San Francisco.  So, you’re basically on city streets.  But it’s three lanes and we’ll be fine when we leave with the fifth wheel.  Drove over the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time this trip.  I drove over it back in 1982, but it bothered me a lot.  Not sure why, because going over it today wasn’t bad at all.  Of course I wasn’t driving.  After exiting the Golden Gate we took the first exit for Rt. 1.  And the road was incredibly windy and twisty.  Had some gorgeous vistas, but no place to stop and take pictures.  Drove up only to the cute little town of Tamales and turned around, because we passed a place in Tamales Bay that the owner of a restaurant in Santa Barbara where we ate one night highly recommended—Nick’s Cove in Tamales Bay.  So we went back there and had lunch with a view of what we thought was a lake, but it’s an inlet off the Pacific.  There were some cottages on the shore and some floating docks, but what good is this place.  You can’t swim.  The water temps are in the 50s.  But we had an incredible lunch.  I had Dungeness crab eggs benedict and Mike had a dozen oysters on the half shell from different areas in the Bay.  After lunch we decided to take the Marshall-Petaluma road over to Petaluma and get the 101.  It took so long to travel the 40 or so miles on the PCH that we decided to take the 101 back.  We went through some cute little towns though—like Dogtown, population 30. and Tamales, another cute little town.  Like stepping back in time.  Some of the buildings I’m sure go back 100 years.  We were going to do Muir Woods and Tiburon today also but ran out of time.  As it was, we hit rush hour traffic again in SF.  Fortunately, most of it was going the other way.  Back to our site on the bluff overlooking the Pacific and sat out and read for a while, listening to the waves pounding the beach.  Then had dinner at a little Italian restaurant in a strip mall just down the road.  Temps were all over the place today.  63 down by the water and 80 up in the hills.

Going over the Golden Gate

The little inlet we thought was a lake.  The great white sharks breed here in the winter.

The traffic coming out of SF into Marin County.