Jim & June's Odyssey 081107
Trip Start
Aug 25, 2008
1
14
57
Trip End
Ongoing
Santa Rosa,
California,
United States
Friday, November 7, 2008
The rain never let up and seemed to get stronger. When the weather forecasters started issuing "Flash Flood" warnings - we bugged out and drove about 300 miles from Brookings, Oregon to Forestville, CA (NW of Santa Rosa) in one day and stayed at the Riverbend RV Resort overnight. To get there, we drove for 23 miles along a VERY narrow, curvy, hilly paved road that seemed to race through the Sonoma Valley vine fields. The resort itself is located in a narrow, twisting valley along the Russian River. At night we were enveloped in a fog thicker than soup.
During the 300 mile trip, we drove through the Jedediah Smith Redwood Forest, the Humboldt Redwood Forest and the National Redwood Forest and a couple more. They are magnificent!! where the average large ones are 8-10 ft in diameter. We skipped driving through the "Avenue of the Giants" segment because it was raining, the road is narrow, winding and where you can't take a motorhome anyways.
Observation 1 - Although the redwoods grow straight, the bark and the grains spiral in a clockwise fashion. I wonder if they're counter-clockwise in the S Hemisphere? Observation 2 - Every roadway, creek, bluff, valley, overpass, underpass, fence line and slough (yes, slough) is named after someone with "bucks" i.e.: Rockefeller, etc.
Observation 3 - Towns are named in groups of synonyms which can be frustrating when you're trying to remember where to turn. For example, these towns are in close proximity to each other: Guerneville, Guerseyville, Gravesville, and Garberville.
Observation 4 - Wherever there are lots of trees, there will be HUGE statue of a Blue Ox and his Ukrainian owner, Paul Bunyak.
At a service station along the way, there was a "One Log House" on display. The 9'x 25' redwood was hollowed out, a door was installed at one end and an actual home was built inside.
The next day we moved to the Marin RV Park located just 10 miles N of the Golden Gate Bridge and IS the closest RV park to San Francisco.
