With our extension at the lighthouse coming to an end, and the reality of the cross country drive to Florida by the end of the year settling in – it was time to plot our escape and get on with the next adventure of clearing out Chris’ storage unit in Sacramento.
We left Cape Blano with no plans other than following the coastal route down 101 for as long as feasible.
Our campground in Sacramento could get us in for 2 weeks starting on Oct 16, setting a vague timeline for our repositioning. Other than our end point reservation, we had no other stops pre-planned. It was exciting to get back on the open road after a 6 week stop.
Last Days at Cape Blanco
With thanks to our call for last minute volunteers at the lighthouse, we had not one, but two couples show up. Long time readers, Judy & Bryan, arrived within 8 hours of the blog post going up – they had just passed by the area, and had flexibility to swing back for a couple of weeks.
And then fairly new to the road nomads, Billy & Leigh, signed on to arrive just prior to our departure to relieve us.
Perfection! Our ranger Greg was very happy to say the least – and is going to spread word to the Oregon interpretive program that bloggers are a great tool for recruitment. I’m just glad we could help.
Billy & Leigh actually ended up coming in a couple days early, so we had the pleasure of getting to connect with them before we needed to scoot on ourselves.
On Thursday we served our final shift of the year at the lighthouse. It was bittersweet, to say the least. But it’s always good to leave before you feel you’ve exhausted the experience.
That evening, we hosted a campfire for all of the lighthouse hosts to meet the newest arrivals, and we had a rockin evening. It was also Kiki’s 5th birthday, I’m sure she thought the party was for her.
On Saturday morning, we pulled out of our spot to discover a mushroom had grown between our rear tires – a sure sign it’s time to move on!
We left Cape Blanco State Park (our review), likely one of the best parks we’ve ever stayed at.
Our hearts full of fond memories – from our time with Nina & Paul, visits from numerous friends, amazing hikes, whales, sealions, volunteering, making new friends and glorious sunsets.
Crescent City, CA
After reading Nina’s review of Harris Beach State Park just south of us near Brookings, OR – we set vague intentions of possibly stopping there for the night.
We arrived early afternoon to find the park mostly filled up, and frankly after our time at Cape Blanco – we were too spoiled by big private sites to really appreciate it. Even though we were entitled to a free night when coming off our Oregon volunteer service.
So, we moved on down the coast. And then it started lightly raining.
We had our eye on a possible Passport America park in Crescent City, but in the drizzle we missed the turn off. But we ended up pulling into Bayside RV Park (our review) right off 101 instead.
The park wasn’t anything spectacular, just a big parking lot right off a main highway. But it was there, easy in and out, and only $28/night.
Serendipity had however led us to a pretty spectacular evening. The rain cleared up, we enjoyed or first meal out in a while and caught up on some shopping in a real grocery store. We also did a drive around town and caught some views of Battery Point Lighthouse.
We returned home and started exploring around the park, to discover a pier that went out to some seastacks in the bay. We saw some folks at the top taking in the lovely sunset views, so we started hiking out ourselves.
Perched at the very pinnacle of the stacks, we had the sounds of the navigation horn in front of us, the sounds of barking sealions behind us, a lovely sunset and a pod of whales off to our left.
What on earth could make that any better? Oh wait, let’s toss in a pod of spinner dolphins too! Pictures just can’t capture the beauty.
All that was missing was a bottle of wine, which was waiting for us back at the bus.
A lovely evening, giving us confidence that life after Cape Blanco could be pretty good afterall.
Garberville, CA
The next day was a lovely driving day of mostly coastal views down 101. We made it a long one of just over 140 miles. Which may not seem like much, but when traversing a hilly curvy road with lots of slight mountain grades, it took us just over 4 hours.
We had our eye on a Passport America Park near Garberville that would be $16.50 a night with our 50% discount.
The various campground apps we used however had the park mis-placed on their maps, and we thought we had passed it by. Then viola, there it was. Perfect. We were tired of driving and ready to call it a day.
We pulled into Richardson Grove RV Park (our review) and used their night check-in to snag a pull through spot. The park wasn’t overly impressive – right off 101 with highway noise to match.
Smaller tighter spots, and really not much to do except visit the touristy shops across the street, including the ‘One Log House’.
There was hardly any cellular signal to be had, even with our boosting gear – and since we checked in after-hours, we didn’t have access to the password protected WiFi.
We made it an early evening, with intentions to head on in the morning.
Calistoga, CA
Seeing as we had a couple of days before our spot in Sacramento was available, we decided to make a stop at Harbin Hot Springs for a soak – a place neither of us had been in many years, but a place each of us had independently frequented before we met.
We looked at campgrounds in the area, and discovered the Calistoga RV Park, located in the Napa Valley Fairgrounds (our review) offered Passport America rates too! Score – $17.50/night and within walking distance of downtown Calistoga sounded wonderful.
(Passport America is the only camping club we belong to – at $39/year for 50% off at a variety of parks across the country, it pays for itself very quickly. On this repositioning alone, we saved $51.50.)
We arrived, got settled in our spot and took off to explore downtown. Cute little town, and we enjoyed a lovely Thai dinner – a cuisine too far absent from our diets these past couple months.
The next morning we took the Mini motoring over fun tight curvy roads to Middletown, and enjoyed some time soaking in the hot pools of Harbin. (Sorry – no photography allowed, not that you really wanted to see naked pictures of technomads anyway.)
We ended up only staying a couple hours – it was just pretty crowded there, making it less than relaxing. So we headed back over the twisty winding roads towards home, and enjoyed a long walk around Calistoga while we grounded ourselves for the two weeks ahead of us.
Let the Chaos Begin… Sacramento
The next morning, we made the final short 80+ miles into Sacramento.
We had two routing choices – heading over to potentially pot-hole and traffic crazy I-80 or taking the twisty turny back-roads. Chris used Google Earth to virtually drive it, and determined he was up for taking Zephyr on 128 over through Davis.
So we turned on our brand new GoPro Hero video camera to start experimenting with some time lapse photography of our drive.
We definitely have more experimenting to do with time lapse, but thought this would be fun to share with you ..
It doesn’t nearly capture just how twisty, tight and curvy the road was – my ‘eeep’ warning system was on in full force, and Kiki hardly ever gets motion sick.
But our sports bus Zephyr had a blast at Chris’ command. That should come as no surprise to us actually, as looking through the original conversion receipts from the early 1990s, it would seem Zephyr used to spent a bit of time up in this region.
We arrived to our spot in Sacramento, to discover our RVing friends Debby & Bill were here too – who we’ve been enjoying reconnecting with. Also turns out our immediate neighbors are blog readers Bill & Irene. What a small world it is!
We’ve not had too terribly much time for socializing however – and we jumped right into our reason for being here. Two weeks of crazy chaos of attending to a long overdue chore.
Which brings us to…
Join us this Tuesday evening for our next live video webcast!
Topic: Storage Units and Purging
When: Tuesday, Oct 22 (TOMORROW!)
6pm PST / 9pm ESTBroadcast live from our storage unit, that we’re in the midst of purging. Chris setup his unit when he first hit the road 7 years ago as a walk-in closet to rotate seasonal items. We’ll discuss when it makes sense to have a unit, and when its time to let it go. And of course, we’ll share some of the chaos! Q&A to follow – so bring your questions about life on the road in general.
This webcast will be live broadcast on our Ustream Channel, join us there at the appointed time.
Click Here to get e-mail notifications when we schedule future video chats.
You know we had the same feeling about Harris after our stay in Cape Blanco. We *knew* Harris was a great State Park and we *knew* it had lots of positives, but we kept looking at each other and saying “it’s just not Cape Blanco!”. Nothing compares really, at least not for us. Good luck with the big purge…you’re already making excellent progress!
Nina
You guy just went through my old stomping ground, graduated from Napa High! Lots of 1st and fond memories! Used to drive 128 in my MG with youth and fearless. Might be a bit different today. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
One of the re-cons that we did while at Richardson Grove was to get on to Hiway 1 where it starts at 101 and drive down to Ft, Bragg. Figured out real quick it was no place for a motorhome,….it made 128 look like a freeway!
We’ve done that drive before too, but in our previous Jeep & small trailer setup. I remember it being pretty, um, challenging in that setup.
The blue highways are so much more interesting than the big ol’ four-lanes!
And Zephyr’s the perfect size for traipsing along the byways – as you’ve discovered.
Now Cherie needs to peel Chris’s hands off Zephyr’s wheel so she can experience the joy of an afternoon drive thru the foothills!
As Angie says and did, she “faced her fear and pushed thru it” behind the wheel of their Eagle, and now enjoys sharing with Sean. Even with the toad!
See you guys soon! 🙂
Looking forward to finally meeting you in person, RJ! 🙂
A lot of things need to happen first before I’m comfortable driving Zephyr … such as, oh, being able to reach the pedals? Or, maybe getting comfortable driving the Mini?? Or getting every other vehicle off the roads??
But if you’re up for a challenge of trying to get me over some major fear of driving in general… 😀
Gotta love those Napa area roads. We just followed that almost identical route after our month long stay in Crescent City. Wish I would have checked your blog sooner as we were only 100 or so miles from your lighthouse duties and looks like we were driving on our about the same days (second week of October?). We cut across CA 20 from 101 and ended up dropping down CA 16; the 20 was fine but 16 might as well have been a motocross course with all the dips and rises. Currently up in Tahoe for fall colors and Halloween parties at the Casinos (perfect weather).
We found Highway 101 to be no big deal twist and turn wise; You just have to follow the caution signs when they say 30 because they mean 30! Absolutely beautiful country.
For sure, compared to some of the back roads like 16 and 128, 101 is a cake walk (drive?)!
Bummer we had a near miss!
We just arrived at Morgan Hill TT park from driving down 101 from Sequim Wa. After 5 or 6 hundred miles, I said to my wife, “gee I don’t see many large motorhomes on 101”. We have a 35 foot Georgetown towing a Ford Fiesta. I can only say it is twisty and hilly but definitely worth the trip. What ever you heard about the scenic beauty of the Oregon coast is true. Take your time and have at it!!!
Oh yes… it’s such a beautiful drive! Take it slow and easy, make an adventure out of it.
We were always told that highway 101 was a big no no for big rigs. Too many sharp twists and turns with hair pin turns. How did you find it driving? We have a 43 footer with a tow vehicle so we’ve always been afraid to try that route based on what we’ve heard and read.
Eh… all depends on how comfy you are with your rig. 101 has no restrictions on it for length, and plenty of big rigs traveling it. Lots of RV Parks along the way, and lots of RV friendly pull offs all along the coast.
There are lots of 3-4 mile passes with 7% grades, and the road can be narrow in spots with curves. But nothing a confident driver can’t handle, especially if you follow the warning signs.
Thanks for the info Cherie. We’ve been on the road since 2008, FT since this past June 24th, so we’re pretty good at driving our rig. So this may be a neat route to do when we get to that area. Thanks Again.
My husband so lovingly pointed out that I was also getting Hwy 101 confused with Hwy 1. It was Hwy 1 that was not recommended for big rigs. So…oh well, still good to know. Thanks.
So how does the section of 128 from Calistoga to Davis compare to the section from Geyserville to Calistoga? Better? worse? the same? We went down thru Napa and then over to Lodi when we left Calistoga.
The Calistoga to Davis part wasn’t as hilly.. but was more curvy and longer.
Copy cats! :>) After we left you guys we stayed in Brookings for 4 nites because of the storm that came thru. We were in the Seabird Rv park which is on the left just after you cross the bridge to the south of town. Easy to miss it, which we did, due to the trees. It is above the harbor and the trees made a big difference on the amount of wind that we got. Next we stayed just to the south of Orick at an rv park that has elk that wander thru. Spent 3 nites at Richardson Grove and drove around a bunch on what we call re-con trips. Then we ended up at the fairgrounds at Calistoga for 4 nites and more re-con trips. From there to near California City for a couple of nites and then decided to just do the run to Yuma. A couple of more weeks here taking care of a few things and then on to Florida for the winter….might just see you there.
We were surprised with how much the trees at Cape Blanco protected us from that storm. 70-80mph winds down on the overlook and out at the cape… but gentle in the campground.
Glad you guys had a great adventure too.. not to many options to head south from Cape Blanco than 101 🙂
You guys should do a time lapse with the GoPro of the storage unit clean out!
We are taking lots of photos 🙂