Late October into November, 2018
Crescent City, CA
An RV park on the ocean in Crescent City! Time to restock, do laundry, relax and enjoy warmer days.

Then on to Eureka, which means “I found it” – google Archimedes and Eureka to learn more 😉 We visited Blue Ox Millwright- and words can not describe the interesting and discombobulated place we found. However, our tour guide was amazingly knowledgeable. In the late 1800s, Humboldt Bay was all about Redwood Timber- 500 sawmills dotted the shores and 100s of sailing ships took millions of board feet of lumber out. And in the 1900s it all started to dwindle away. Starting in the 1970s, Eric scavenged and collected old logging, sawmill and millwright equipment- much of it foot pedal powered!

And he began doing custom wood millwork the old fashioned way for Victorian home restorations. Blue Ox does millwork, teaches vet and kids, offer classes, and continues to collect equipment from those old timber days.
We both can not say this enough- to ourselves and to you our readers- poverty and homelessness is so evident in any place we visit where the weather is temperate all year round. We, in New England, should consider ourselves very lucky for the homes, jobs and support we have compared to many people around the country.

Westport, CA gave us an old state park campground on a bluff with incredible views of the ocean and two beaches to walk and almost no other campers. However, the shore line is not stable. This campground road is 150 ft above the beach and has been discontinued because much of it is now in the ocean!And we do wonder about earthquakes, as there were over 40 of them the other day just 40 miles from here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bodega Bay- we are prepping ourselves for the trek down through San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge. As much as many RVers never hesitate to be on huge, busy interstates- we avoid them until we can’t- to go south along the coast we have to take the highway for a bit. We have learned that it is well worth the wait to do these drives early on Sunday mornings- no commuter traffic, few semi trucks and less traffic altogether. This campground had water on both sides- a big sand bar essentially. We were there for the first day of Crab Fishing- kind of like “deer camp” back in Maine 🙂
Golden Gate Bridge- we crossed at 8:30 on Sunday morning- heavy traffic, but the toll is so high, no trucks! $32 for our truck and trailer to cross!

And then an hour of city driving, down Rt 1 until we got to our next stop in Santa Cruz- on a bluff above the ocean and beach- pretty sweet!
Big Sur- it is spectacular scenery and a very twisty turny road- but Clare has driven so many of these kind of roads- many right here on the West Coast! A Forest Service campground on the bluff above the beach!

Cayucos, CA- apparently this is the last little tourist beach town in California. We have an ocean view of the ocean, Morro Rock and the town.

The traffic is so light we think Hope, Maine has more traffic. Yet the town is mostly hotels and restaurants. We watched whales and dolphins just off the shore. A group of sea otters where in the harbor, the moms were washing their babies- even though they swim every day, apparently they need a good washing, too!

 

 

 

And this zebra? Apparently Hearst Castle, which still has a working cattle ranch, still has some exotic animals, too. Zebras were all along the road with the cattle.