Yet another easy drive week. We stayed 3 nights at the Novato RV Park. Monday was our "Berkeley day". After a lazy coffee morning at the RV park, we headed off over the Richmond Bridge to Berkeley. We had planned on taking the Ashby Street exit (south end of Berkeley) but as we neared Berkeley on I-580 the freeway traffic ground to 4 lanes of parking lot. Luckily we were right at the Gilman exit (north end of Berkeley) so took that one and did a brief residential tour on our way to Stone Mountain and Daughters fabric store. Really nice gardens all over the place. It seems this place just has the perfect weather for gardening. Kris spent an hour or so in the fabric store, coming away with some nice fabric for a scarf and/or blouse, while Brian went down the street and found a place (Lili's Salon) for a hair cut.
For lunch we decided to try a new place (for us) and headed to Berkeley Bowl which, we found, is a giant grocery store with an attached cafe. Had an excellent lunch and did some grocery shopping. Later, after browsing some favorite stores along Shattuck Ave, we drove to Hida Tools, a great Japanese woodworking and gardening tool shop where we picked up a few cool gadgets.
Tuesday we visited San Rafael specifically for a bit of shopping at Dharma Trading where Kris easily spent an hour browsing the store. Brian did a bit of driving around to see the downtown area and find a Bank of America to shore up the cash situation. We didn't see any eatery that really caught our eye so decided to drive north to Petaluma (only about 20 miles or so) where we returned to the Aqus Cafe for a nice lunch. We discovered this place last year and gladly returned. After lunch we browsed the main street taking in the excellent Copperfield's bookstore and stopping at a frozen yogurt place. Later in the day we did another drive into central Novato only to find a couple of blocks on main street set up as a farmer's market. Very nice. It seems most of these relatively small towns do the same thing throughout the summer.
Wednesday we packed up the wee trailer and got ready to head north. We decided to do a brief detour and headed back to Larkspur where there is a Chico's store as Kris discovered a flaw in a pair of pants she bought in Monterey. No problem doing a swap but it did add an hour to our "lengthy" trip (all of 60 miles) north to Cloverdale where we would spend the next 4 nights. On the way through Petaluma we stopped at a car wash and gave the wee trailer a good scrubbing. Much nicer now. Oh, and we also stopped at Aqus Cafe for lunch again. Not too habit forming... :-)
We arrived at the Cloverdale KOA to find it almost empty. It is such a beautiful spot and when nobody else is around it is so quiet and really nice to sit out in the late evening and take in nature's sounds and look up at the vast array of stars visible way out here.
Later that day a family from the Bay Area set up their trailer near our site. We got to know each other a bit as he needed some assistance with his "new" trailer. This was his first foray out with their trailer and was unsure of his brake controller setting as well as how to unroll their awning. It all got straightened out and everyone settled in, including their other new asset, their dog "Buddy" who they got from a shelter only a couple of weeks ago. Newbies with the trailer and newbies with the dog. All seemed well until the family went out for dinner thinking that Buddy was safe and sound inside the trailer. HAH! Within an hour of their leaving, Buddy "busted out of the big house" and started roaming. We attempted to catch him but each time he came back to the trailer he eluded capture and buggered off again. Since he always seemed to come back we weren't too concerned about him not returning but it was getting a bit late and dark when other critters, say like Mrs Skunk, might start to come out. We didn't think Buddy being skunked or worse, killed by a raccoon, would make for a happy family outing so we kept trying to grab Buddy and finally succeeded. We tied him up and held him for a while before the family returned. They were very surprised Buddy had escaped and were thankful we had corraled him. All's well that ends well... HAH... next day same thing when they thought they had well fortified the trailer and took off for the day. Well, deja vue all over again...you know the rest! Anyway, they were once again thankful and brought over two excellent Coppola winery bottles. Ok, now we can say... all's well that ends well!
Thursday we drove down to the Coppola Winery where we had an excellent lunch on the patio overlooking the winery. We had co-ordinated the time with a lunch a group of ex-coworkers in Calgary were having so partook in a bit of texting with them. We think we probably had the better scenery for our lunch...
...and possibly the dessert as well...Kris says that next time she is just going to order 4 of these (PannaCotta) for lunch, yummmm...
After lunch we drove the the nearby town of Healdsburg and wandered around the main shopping area with it's beautiful little town square (like a Mexican zocolo).
Friday we drove north to Ukiah where the Vichy Springs Spa Resort is located. We had read articles about this place and it seemed we should do a day visit so we could experience the "famous mineral baths". After paying the $60 fee for a "two hour" pass we wandered through the beautiful grounds to the bath area. They have both outside and inside baths but the outside baths were in total bright/hot sunshine so we opted for the inside ones since we were going to be sitting in them for about half an hour...
We followed the instructions on how to fill the baths and got in as the water started rising. At first we wondered what the big deal was, but after a bit the naturally carbonated water started to feel really neat. Sort of what sitting in a big tub of club soda would be like (we think). Very buoyant and very nice...
After the bath we indulged ourselves in the large outdoor pool before leaving at our appointed time (to avoid another pass fee). We then drove/walked around downtown Ukiah, had lunch at a BBQ place (so-so food) and did a brief explore of the giant Friedman's Hardware store.
Saturday we drove south to Calistoga where last summer we did the mud bath thing. No so much into that, but it is a cute little downtown. We decided to have lunch at the Hydro Grill which claimed to have been awarded the title of "best hamburger in Calistoga" recently. Well, Brian can attest that the hamburger was mediocre at best and Kris can attest that the fish taco was not much more than a sloppy mess of fish stew thrown onto a couple of tortillas which ended up being very soggy and impossible to pick up. So much for that place.(And how can a Zagat rated restaurant have only one toilet for a huge restaurant??). After wandering around Calistoga a bit more we decided to head further south to St Helena near the north end of the Napa Valley. Very pretty drive down highway 128 all the way through Calistoga to St Helena and back to Cloverdale. St Helena has a fairly nice main street but a bit pricey so definitely aimed at the tourist market. The traffic through St Helena on a nice Saturday afternoon was pretty unbearable.... bumper to bumper... so after a walk around we headed back north. Once we got past the Beringer Winery the traffic started to abate somewhat and soon cooled. Lots of city folks doing the Saturday afternoon Napa tour.
Just north of St Helena is the "Old Faithful Geyser of California". We decided we should stop and have a look. Well, after driving about 5 miles down the side road we came to the "tourist attraction". Large hedges have been grown around the geyser and they charge $10 a person to see it spew water about 10 feet into the air every half hour to 45 minutes. NOT! As with several other groups that arrived at about the same time, we just left.
Sunday was travel day and after packing up at the KOA we headed west through the Andersen Valley on Highway 128 to Fort Bragg where we set up at the Pomo Campground for the next 5 days. To finish off the day and week, we went down to the Noyo Harbor to sit out on a patio with a couple of glasses of wine as we watched the sun set over the beautiful harbor entrance..
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