The first three days of this week were basically day trips. Monday we drove into San Francisco and hit some of our favorite shopping and general wandering around areas including Nordstrom Rack, Laurel Heights, Fillmore Street and of course Fabrix where Kris picked up some more future projects. While at Fillmore we opted to park at the Japan Center and take a bus downtown rather than drive and find parking there. It turned out to be a good idea as the bus ride is easy and the parking was easily half of what we would have paid downtown. For lunch we tried Rigolo Cafe at Laurel Heights. Highly recommended!
Tuesday was a drive over to Berkeley. We drove around numerous streets looking at the beautiful gardens etc on our way up to Shattuck Avenue where we parked for a while and browsed a number of favorite shops. For lunch we drove down to eat at the cafe at Berkeley Bowl West on Heinz Ave. Simple but inexpensive and very good. Afterwards on the way out of Berkeley we stopped in at Hida Tools to drool over their collection of fabulous, albeit expensive, Japanese woodworking tools and other hardware (not to mention the very petable kitty).
Wednesday we decided to just browse around Petaluma so after a lazy morning we drove into town, found a place to park and wondered along the main drag for a few blocks in each direction then over a block to where the excellent bookstore is and a few other stores worthy of a look inside are. For lunch we wandered across a bridge to Dempster's Brew Pub where we had a decent pub type lunch. Quite nice. Later in the afternoon we drove about 20 minutes north to Cotati to see if the Lowe's store had any decent track lighting. Didn't find any track lighting but did pick up a nice light for the dressing room so all in all a successful diversion. For dinner we headed back downtown Petaluma to McNear's again.
Thursday was departure day so we loaded up the wee trailer and headed out. We stopped for lunch and a rest in Ukiah. After a walk around the few blocks making up the "downtown", we stopped in at the Ukiah Brewing Company for lunch. Another decent pub like lunch sitting by the large glass windows overlooking a main street so we could take in a bit of the business crowd heading out for their own lunches. Before leaving town we found our way to the local Friedman's Home Improvement store. Huge store where a person could wander around for hours but we limited ourselves to about half an hour then got set to depart. Destination for the day was the Benbow RV Resort just south of Garberville. We have wanted to try it a couple of times but the inclement weather in those cases made us decide to just keep heading on. This time though we made the stop and it was well worth it. The historic Benbow Inn is just a short walk from the RV park. After setting up we headed over to the inn and were not disappointed. Beautiful place overlooking the river. It was a tad on the chilly side so we opted not to sit out on the patio (we would have been the only ones out there anyway), instead we sat in the nice little lounge and had some wine and and excellent cheese plate.
Oh, and if you are an avid golfer, the Benbow RV Resort also has a pretty good looking golf course.
Friday we continued north on 101. We took a side road off to the pretty little Victorian town of
Normally on trips up the coast we would go north on 101 from Crescent City. This time we headed inland on US 199 through the beautiful Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park and into Oregon, through Grants Pass to overnight at the KOA near Medford. We arrived before noon but they let us check in anyway. Our goal for the day was to spend the afternoon in Ashland where Kris wanted to visit the Fabric of Vision (yes you guessed it) fabric store. In the store the owner asked how we came to know about her store. Kris said she follows another woman's sewing blog who references the store on occasion. The owner laughed and said that that woman's (the blogger's) best friend was in the store just yesterday and bought the exact same fabric that Kris was buying... lots of laughs.
For lunch we searched out a place that was listed in the recent Sunset magazine, New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro where we had the best, bar none, meal of this trip for all of a fixed price of $15 each. Absolutely excellent! All in all, Ashland is a very pleasant place in which to wander around. The town's main claim to fame is the annual Shakespeare Festival.
That night the rain started. We checked the weather channel for Portland only to learn that the forecast for the next week plus was nothing but rain. A week ago, the forecast was for mostly sunny so this news was a bit of a letdown for us. Well, the new forecast was pretty accurate. The next day it rained all the way to Portland and wasn't about to give up just for us. We had dinner that night at McMenamins Edgefield in one of their small pubs. Very nice albeit a tad on the pricey side.
Monday we headed downtown to the Apple Store. On our way through, earlier in the month, Kris bought a new iPhone 5 (before the new 5S was announced) so we stopped in to see if she could get an upgrade. They didn't have any of the new ones in stock so Kris opted for a $100 rebate along with the fellow showing her how to download the new operating system. After that he showed us about some of the cool new features. Off we went. After a brief stop in Starbucks and Nordstrom (mostly to get out of the rain) we headed down to the Pearl district, parked in Powell's Books parkade and spent a couple of hours in the bookstore. It would be real easy to spend a lot more time in there, that's for sure.
We had hoped to spend about 4 days in Portland but in this rain... not so much. To add insult to injury, the wee trailer developed a leak again. The saving grace for us was that the water came in under the mattress so only the bottom of it got wet; we could still at least sleep in comfort. We decided to head home the next day. Tuesday we drove north to Gig Harbor and stayed that night at the Gig Harbor RV Resort. Pretty nice sites but hard to get a good read on a place when it is pouring rain. We drove around a bit then decided on Tides Tavern for dinner. We had to ask them a couple of times to put the ball game on tv and finally they did. At one point, Kris went off to the ladies room and came back to tell about the view out over the harbor from the restroom. Brian went off to the mens room and came back to tell about the view of the urinal... hmmm something wrong with this picture!
Wednesday we stopped in Bainbridge Island so Kris could pick up a bit more yarn at Churchmouse Yarns to add to the project she bought there on our way south. The rain had relented a bit so we wandered up the street for lunch at the Streamliner Diner. A bit of a wait for a table but well worth it. After lunch we continued on to Sequim, about twenty minutes or so from Port Angeles. For dinner we drove out to the 7 Cedars Casino. We had dinner here on our way south but this time the buffet was open so tried that. Probably one of the poorer buffet dinners we have experienced in any of the native casinos we have tried on our travels. Also one of the least expensive at $13 each so maybe that explains a lot. With wine and tip we ended up spending $42. Afterwards we went into the casino and played video poker for an hour or so. While playing poker we had two more glasses of wine at $4 each so our total outlay was about $48. Playing video poker we came out $41 to the good so, all in all, the evening cost us $7. We can live with that!
Since the ferry is now on the winter schedule with only two sailings a day we decided to try to catch the early morning one departing at 8:15. We got up in the pitch dark, had showers and packed up the wee trailer and headed off for Port Angeles arriving at about 7:15 to help make sure we would get on. They informed us that we were ok without a reservation that day but it was good to get there early just in case.
We were pretty bagged by the time the ferry arrived in Victoria so decided to just head home rather than hang around Victoria. After stopping in Nanaimo for lunch we arrived home late afternoon. That's it for this trip.
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