Day Twenty One
This morning was much like the day before, cold, damp and overcast. Today my mission was to drive all the way down to Sebastopol, California to visit my old university friend, Daniel Osmer.
As I was preparing to leave the Brookings RV Park, my next door neighbour suggested I go inland rather than staying on Hwy 101 because, in his opinion, it would be a better road and much faster. Not being overly familiar with the area I decided to take his advice. I was also looking forward to seeing some nice warm and sunny weather again which I knew would be the case further inland.
The suggested route was Hwy 199 to Redding, CA which crossed the Salmon Mountains that reach elevations of nearly 9000 feet. It was a beautiful road with amazing scenery but very winding and once I crested the high point I spent a lot of time in a lower gear riding the brakes.
As the day wore on I realized that the advice I'd been given was dreadfully wrong. Due to the fires that had devastated the forest west of Redding, the fire crews were still in cleanup mode and the two-lane road was restricted to one lane in at least a dozen different places. This meant long lines waiting for the pilot car to guide us past the work sites.
As I neared Redding, CA the whole area was like a war zone. Blackened trees and houses reduced to ashes along the road told the story of the horrendous damage the fire had caused.
Once I had reached Interstate 5 I could attempt to make up some time but in California, the speed limit is pegged at 55 mph for any vehicles towing trailers even though the posted speed for cars is 70 mph.
I finally rolled into Sebastopol at a little after 7:00 pm after 10 hours of pretty gruelling driving. Daniel had asked me to meet him at one of his favourite watering holes, The Gravenstein Grill. As soon as I pulled into their parking lot I knew that I had probably just made a huge mistake. It was packed with cars and had absolutely no way for me to turn around and exit. I was able to drive off onto a grassy area where I wasn't blocking anyone from leaving and went inside to find Daniel. He was sitting alone at the bar enjoying a glass of red wine. It had seemed like an ordeal just getting there so we hugged and I slumped down in the chair next to him feeling very glad that my journey was done for another day.
Daniel hadn't eaten yet and I had only had an apple and some water since breakfast so we found a nice little Thai restaurant and had some dinner.
Here's a photo of Daniel I snapped. He complained that he didn't have his signature hat on when I took it but I snapped it anyway.
In a way, my day's adventure was not over yet. After dinner, we drove back to the Gravenstein Grill to get my truck and trailer and fortunately several cars had left which provided me with a way to leave the parking lot. It was dark by now and my right headlight had burned out on the trip so it was a bit of a challenge following Daniel back to his place. The road was very windy and narrow but we arrived at the top of his road and he signalled me to pull off to the side so that I could park the trailer while we went down the steep hill to scope out the spot he had in mind for me to park for the next couple of days. It's tough to describe but this was going to be a challenge in itself. Once I drove down this crazy hill I was committed because I couldn't turn around if I couldn't get into the planned parking spot and would have had to back a 6000 lb. trailer up a steep hill in the dark. Long story short, I was able to get the trailer into Daniel's landlady's parking area. It was leaning on an awkward angle but I didn't have the energy to deal with it until morning. By now it was quite late so we both retired to our respective nests and wrapped up another day on the road.
As I was preparing to leave the Brookings RV Park, my next door neighbour suggested I go inland rather than staying on Hwy 101 because, in his opinion, it would be a better road and much faster. Not being overly familiar with the area I decided to take his advice. I was also looking forward to seeing some nice warm and sunny weather again which I knew would be the case further inland.
The suggested route was Hwy 199 to Redding, CA which crossed the Salmon Mountains that reach elevations of nearly 9000 feet. It was a beautiful road with amazing scenery but very winding and once I crested the high point I spent a lot of time in a lower gear riding the brakes.
As the day wore on I realized that the advice I'd been given was dreadfully wrong. Due to the fires that had devastated the forest west of Redding, the fire crews were still in cleanup mode and the two-lane road was restricted to one lane in at least a dozen different places. This meant long lines waiting for the pilot car to guide us past the work sites.
As I neared Redding, CA the whole area was like a war zone. Blackened trees and houses reduced to ashes along the road told the story of the horrendous damage the fire had caused.
Once I had reached Interstate 5 I could attempt to make up some time but in California, the speed limit is pegged at 55 mph for any vehicles towing trailers even though the posted speed for cars is 70 mph.
I finally rolled into Sebastopol at a little after 7:00 pm after 10 hours of pretty gruelling driving. Daniel had asked me to meet him at one of his favourite watering holes, The Gravenstein Grill. As soon as I pulled into their parking lot I knew that I had probably just made a huge mistake. It was packed with cars and had absolutely no way for me to turn around and exit. I was able to drive off onto a grassy area where I wasn't blocking anyone from leaving and went inside to find Daniel. He was sitting alone at the bar enjoying a glass of red wine. It had seemed like an ordeal just getting there so we hugged and I slumped down in the chair next to him feeling very glad that my journey was done for another day.
Daniel hadn't eaten yet and I had only had an apple and some water since breakfast so we found a nice little Thai restaurant and had some dinner.
Here's a photo of Daniel I snapped. He complained that he didn't have his signature hat on when I took it but I snapped it anyway.
In a way, my day's adventure was not over yet. After dinner, we drove back to the Gravenstein Grill to get my truck and trailer and fortunately several cars had left which provided me with a way to leave the parking lot. It was dark by now and my right headlight had burned out on the trip so it was a bit of a challenge following Daniel back to his place. The road was very windy and narrow but we arrived at the top of his road and he signalled me to pull off to the side so that I could park the trailer while we went down the steep hill to scope out the spot he had in mind for me to park for the next couple of days. It's tough to describe but this was going to be a challenge in itself. Once I drove down this crazy hill I was committed because I couldn't turn around if I couldn't get into the planned parking spot and would have had to back a 6000 lb. trailer up a steep hill in the dark. Long story short, I was able to get the trailer into Daniel's landlady's parking area. It was leaning on an awkward angle but I didn't have the energy to deal with it until morning. By now it was quite late so we both retired to our respective nests and wrapped up another day on the road.
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