Day 36 California Petaluma to Wesport
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
45
205
Trip End
Nov 22, 2008
Westport,
California,
United States
Thursday, June 12, 2008
We had a few errands to catch up on and we know our way around this town, so off we trot.
Managed to have some paper work printed to be posted, including some vouchers for the trip into the bears. It sure beats carting or purchasing a printer! I bought a 2gb memory card and had saved the information to that drive, headed to "Staples" (similar to Office Works) handed the stick over and the guy printed the documents for the definite high cost of .69c, and this included two photo copies as well as an envelope to put the copies in for safe keeping!
We headed to the Fed Ex centre/post centre. This was an exercise in itself to have the documents Rick wanted Fed Ex'ed and parcel up a birthday present for Byran (Happy Birthday Byran in a few days, from Pop, Karon & Rick) also a few small things Rick and Karon had purchased for the grand kids, As well as one for of Ricks latest addition to his tribe, Welcome William Zac Alborn, born 11th June at the Gold Coast and congrats to Kylie, Rob for the new addition adding to the family of Catherine and Ethan. I am a very proud Pop.
Hello Jodee, your time is up and YOUR Pop is asking the question?
Also we must mention here that it is HAPPY Birthday Tara, We didn't forget nor did we get confused with the dates nor dateline, it is as simply "we have NO internet connection! (Gee how is Rick going to survive? Is the question the fellow travellers are asking!)
We travelled today a short way along the highway 101 then cut off the 101 to the 128, this was to bring us out to the coast to enable us to travel along side the Ocean again.
Highway 128 was a nice road with a few winding parts, BUT the country side through more wineries and grape growing area that was picturesque with the houses and wine tasting halls out of picture books and very inviting.
We continued to wind through a State Redwood Forest area, again the beauty in these trees was a joy to observe, Although with numerous log trucks coming at us with full loads of redwood logs on their backs, it created a thought when we spotted two log truckers and their loads stopped on the road in a grove of tall redwoods, "If the trees had thoughts and feelings, they would not feel great about seeing their friends and relatives stacked on the back of the human vehicles"
The drive through these trees and with the knowledge gained from our visit to Muir woods yesterday, gave us an understanding of the way they are created and also it was easier to estimate the age of some of the groups of trees alongside the highway.
We came into a small town and stopped for a milkshake and coffee, (no Karon didn't have to give instructions on how to create a banana milkshake, maybe her visit last time bore the fruit and spread to the smaller centres! BUT we ended up with THICKSHAKE, so more education may be required!
We left there and drove alongside a river that began as a small brook but very quickly grew into a large water shed into the ocean, at the intersection of the 128 and highway 1.
Ok so now Fort Bragg is only about 20 miles away and we wind along the pacific highway 1 towards this, attempting to choose an RV place to stop.
Well we come to a small town and drive past a couple of RV places thinking "nah there must be a little better"
We pulled over and programmed Mandy to tell us where the RV parks were we found in the book.
Mandy insisted that we "go around the block" in some very small streets. And brought us back onto the road we had travelled in on, back to what appeared to be (according to the book) a reasonable RV park.
We took a turn around the block in this park and drove straight out! (are we getting a little fussy, NAH just it didn't "look real good" I can tell you!
So back on the road and pull over again to reprogram Mandy for another, She insisted we do another tight turn that appeared to be returning us in the direction we came from, Rick being the whooosebag he is refused to do any more tight turns around narrow streets ,so he drove forward.
This took us into Fort Bragg itself and we found the information centre on the main road.
Pull over and in we head, to gain info on the RV parks in the area, the very helpful lady wanted to offer us a kayak trip that is entirely safe even for a three year old, (I mention here the wind is doing the usual afternoon gale force and off the pacific cold thing!) After she managed to get over the fact that Karon and Rick were not really interested in a kayak trip on the ocean, no matter how safe she insisted it was, she then went on to point out the RV parks that we had already driven past on our way into town.
We drove to Westport and found a park down alongside a beach.
It was windy and cold but a nice spot. We had dinner and walked around the park and came across another deer (this time a red female deer grazing in the park, she was a little skittish and ran off just after we came within 30 ft or so, but again a pleasant experience) then up to the beach to watch the sunset and talked to a young couple from England. We had a great chat about travel and having fun etc.
A game of cards (another win to Karon) and no net work connection so we were unable to sing happy birthday to Tara but we didn't forget Tara just couldn't call. Happy Birthday from us.
