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Pacific Coast Hwy 1Jul 31, 2009
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THE COAST OFF HWY 1
THOSE POOR WIND BLOWN TREES
ALL THE FOLLOWING HOUSES ARE IN MENDOCINO,CA
| Thursday morning we get up early for today is a travel day. With the car breakdown we are three days behind. We had planned to leave Crescent City on Monday morning. So today, Thursday we will drive to Willits, CA. The drive down was tiresome. What a difference 200 miles makes. Coming from the mountains & the coast where every day was so nice, not hot at all and going more inland temperature has really gotten hot. We could not get a address from the campground to put in our GPS system. The directions were 5 or 6 miles south of Willits, there was a sign for Golden Rule campground & a Good Sam sign. That's all the directions we received. Well we missed the sign, drove down a mountain where the highway was under road repair, concrete barriers, one small lane and it was very rough. Twenty miles too far south, we pulled off in Ukiah. I was able to reach someone from the campground on their cell phone. With his directions we were able to backtrack, yeah, back up the mountain, this side is rougher than the other side. We get our turn off right and head down a curvy road, steep too. When we round a curve, the motorhome dies. There we are half way down the mountain road to the campground, in a curve with the motorhome dead as a doorbell. We look at each other wondering what do we do now. Bob heads to the back, when I decide to try to start motorhome again. I had tried before and nothing, this time the motor turned over and we go on down to the campground. We set up in the campground, we have no TV, no phone service, a 30 amp breaker,so that means if we need air, only one unit could run and you could only use one appliance at a time. We talk to a RV neighbor, he has been here for quite a few years, he tells us there are RATTLESNAKES there. He had killed 3 in the past several years. Well you know what I did, I went back to the motorhome and that is where I stayed. I tried to read but I couldn't stay focused. Friday morning, after some sleep and breakfast we are feeling better. We head out for a day trip in the car on Hwy 1. We go to Willits and shop at a Safeway store. We pick up items for a picnic on the beach. We take Hwy 20 over to Fort Bragg. The drive of course is over another mountain. The drive down the coast hwy is wonderful. We stop in the town of Mendocino. Lovely, quaint town. The houses are outstanding. The style of the homes and gardens are beautiful. The shops in town are plentiful, quite a few nice restuarants. There are several Bed & Breakfast in town. Over 50 movies or TV series has been made in an around Mendocino. The movie East of Eden was made here. The TV series Murder, She Wrote was filmed here also. We also toured the Point Cabrillo Lighthouse. We drove on down Hwy 1 and came to another lighthouse. I think the name might be Point Arena Lighthouse. I am not sure. They had already closed when we got there. I took pictures from the fence. When we drove off, I heard a noise from the car, the sound was like a belt had broke. Bob looked under the hood, the overflow tank was boiling and making all that noise. Bob put antifreeze in the car, everything seemed ok. We head out toward our route back to the campground. We are going over a mountain road that is the closest route back to the motorhome. Car runs half way on the temperature gauge, but does not run hot. Going over our last leg of our way back, the temperature gauge spikes to hot then goes back to half way. It does this 3 times off and on. We come to a stop sign, just before getting on the Hwy 101. The car dies. The car is still not running hot, but when Bob raises the hood there is smoke every where. There is a Highway Patrol Officer sitting just beyond the stop sign. He comes over and calls AAA for us. We wait on a tow truck. We decide since it is Friday night, no garages open until Monday and we certainly didn't want to stay at this campground any longer. We would take car back to motorhome and load on car dolly. We would travel to Novato,CA which was our next stop and get car fixed there if need be on Monday. We reach campground and of course we are the center of attention with the wrecker and all its yellow lights. We load the car on the car dolly. We are so exhausted, I can't remember if we ate any supper, we went to bed to worry about all this tomorrow. TO BE CONTINUED..... RAMBLING ALONG...... |
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