After we left Florence last Wednesday, we wound our way down to Crescent City and ran into some pretty serious winds! The Hiouchi RV resort was okay. Gravel pull-throughs with grassy areas between for Bear to roll in (he love his grass fix). We stayed there a couple of nights. Our first portion of our trip is to make headway south in search of warmer weather!
Friday, we headed down to the Redwoods to stay at the Giant Redwoods RV and Camp. It rained torrential downpours the whole time we were there. At times during the late afternoon and early evening you could hear high winds approaching through the trees, then there would be a sudden push of the motor home. It was a bit nerve racking watching limbs, leaves and pine needles blowing sideways.
Saturday, when we woke up and the power was out so we decided to drive through the redwoods. There were a lot of downed branches and we were warned by the camp host to be careful if we decided to hike, noting that we could get "conked" on the head by a dropping limb. We chose not to hike anyway because the rains were so heavy (I know... I'm a whimp!). The drive was certainly worth it because the views were awesome!!
We also took a drive up to Eureka and found a brewery there!! You'll all be happy to know that we tested their brews against Bend's. A pretty tough standard! It was called Lost Coast Brewery http://www.lostcoast.com/main.php. I had their "Great White" beer and Mike had their IPA. Gotta say, they weren't Bend beer and were a little more on the mellow side.When we woke up on Sunday we still had no electricity, so we called Calistoga RV Park to see if we could get in a day early. They said yes, so we headed down. The Garmin way suggested to get to Calistoga after exiting highway 101 is though the hills on Hwy 128. We questioned Garmin's abilities because it was really tight curves and my time of driving. We made it unscathed but I needed a large glass of wine that evening to calm down.
If it weren't for the convenient walking distance to town, I probably wouldn't recommend this RV park. It's basically a large parking lot with gravel pad sites and we are pretty close to our neighbors. The first night we were here there was a large RV group meeting in the campground. We started to question our stay at that time, but they all pulled out the next day. Now there are quite a few less RVs in the park and the nights are really quiet.
Calistoga is noted as "Spa Town USA" and it's no joke. I really want to get a massage, but it's going to take some shopping around because Lincoln Avenue Spa, the only one investigated so far, costs$180 for a 50 minute deep tissue spa... yikes!
Yesterday we drove to Santa Rosa to locate a UPS store where we will have our mail delivered on Wednesday. This is when we found out that Garmin must be right. The steepest incline we covered in about 8 miles to get there was 16% up/down grade. On the way back to Calistoga, I used my IPhone to track the altitude gain. Both Calistoga and Santa Rosa were right around 380 feet above sea level. The highest altitude over the hills was over 1,000 feet. That's a lot of climb and down hill. Whew! I could almost watch the gas gage drop as we climbed.
Now we are in for relaxing for a few days, and I'm looking forward to more!!
I have to keep reminding myself that this is an adventure so you take what you get and always have a positive attitude. That's what makes this so fun!!
Hoping all my friends at Bend Research continue to prosper. I look forward to hearing from you.
No comments:
Post a Comment