We took a drive into Cloverdale yesterday. It's just one exit south on the highway but we took some back roads to get there and saw some really nice properties; it's a shame we are still in California or we might have had to go look at some.
The town itself is one of the nicer small towns we've visited, it's really clean and all the houses and businesses look well taken care of. I didn't have the camera so there are no pictures, but some of the houses were beautiful, well maintained and individual (there are even some with turrets) - no tract houses here.
The same can't be said for Ukiah which is about 20 miles north of Cloverdale. We took a ride there today and wasn't too impressed. It's a big town like many others we've passed through, but we got some food shopping done. The drive was really pretty though and we passed some funky little villages on the way here like Hopland.

Mike: No camera, humm! I guess your due for a spanking!

We didn't have too far of a drive today but we still got out of Winters fairly early after saying goodbye to our fellow campers. In spite of what Mike wanted to do we took the longish way around to get to Cloverdale rather than pulling the trailer over the super steep mountains. It actually wasn't that much longer and after a couple of freeways and about 60 miles on the 101 we arrived at Russian River. The park is right alongside the 101 which is unusual for the Thousand Trails parks, but there's very little noise and it's sort of down in a hole and across the river from the highway.
We got checked in and the lady at the gate told us where was best for us to try to find a space, and so off we went. The park is cut into the side of a hill somewhat and so it's quite hilly in here, but we followed the map and here directions and after taking the first turn managed to run into a tree. Well maybe run into is a little bit strong but the turns here are really tight and so the side of the trailer got really close to the trees; fortunately, after checking it out later, the only damage was lots of bark on the awning and a few little tiny holes. There were a couple of trailers dumping and one of the guys came over and helped back us onto the road and then proceeded to tell us that the spot they had just vacated was the best one in the park and we should go take it now. We checked it out and after driving around one more loop road decided his advice was good and we took spot #51, backing in without too much difficulty. The park is nice, very treed and rustic, but almost all the spaces are really small and hard to get into, and looking at the trees we are not the first to have a run in with them. Our space is maybe the best in the park because we have space outside to put out the rug and sit down and most of the others don't have any room, their spaces just drops away outside their trailer doors.

Our bestest space #51

After getting set up Mike spent the next couple of hours trying to get the satellite working. This is the first place we've had any trouble but because of the trees he had a heck of a time getting a clear view of the southern sky. Fortunately for him I had a brainwave around the 10th time of trying to get a signal and now our satellite is sitting up on the hillside behind our trailer and we get all the channels we will ever need. Now he's happy, he has satellite, internet and we even have cell phone service here.


Mike: I had to dig out another 50ft of cable, but it worked! She's so clever!

The view from the satellite dish

Well we've spent the last few days doing hardly anything since there's nothing in this area to do. Most days we've headed into Winters to get online and get caught up with what's happening in the world, but apart from that we've sat around and conversed with the neighbours. This is a membership campground, and everyone around us has been coming here for years and they all know each other. They are all friendly enough, and even Mike has been having extended conversations with different people - will miracles never cease!
The most exciting thing we've done since the last entry is that I went for a massage at Massage Envy in Vacaville. It was not bad, but the chick that was doing the massage was a bit foofy and didn't really get in and knead enough - at least she didn't touch the backs of my knees.
Anyway, thankfully we are leaving here tomorrow and heading to Cloverdale over closer to the coast. We got most of our stuff picked up this afternoon and are mostly ready to leave early in the morning. Hopefully the next place will be a little closer to civilization and we'll be able to have contact with the outside world.

Mike: I'm a social butterfly!

We didn’t go anywhere today, not even in to Winters; Mike went to the lodge and got online there and took care of business.
I’ve spent the whole day cooking, and we now have enough food made to last for at least a week. I made veggie soup, lentil loaf, mushroom burgers, guacamole, sweet onion dip, and spinach and cheese quiche, yummy. It doesn’t sound like much when I write it down but it sure took me a long time to do.

Mike did some chores outside, he fixed the bumper ends (we got ones that he had to drill holes for), and the door latch before spending the rest of the time pacing around looking hungry.

Mike: Becc is becoming an excellent cook! That good, because I like to eat!

We had a day of shopping today, after our normal stop in Winters to get online. Vacaville has an outlet mall and since we haven’t visited one since we were in Maine about 18 months ago we thought we’d check this one out. It is a nice one, and we went in a bunch of the stores, but we didn’t buy anything. The middle of the week is definitely the time to go shopping at these places though aas in most of the stores there were more staff than customers.

Mike: Shopping, shopping, shopping!

This morning we spent an hour or so being naked in public. We left the park early and went west past Lake Berryessa and over the mountains to Calistoga. We had booked an early morning appointment for a couples mud bath at The Golden Haven Hot Springs Spa, one of many spas dotted along the streets of Calistoga. Calistoga is known for it’s wine, being at the north end of the Napa Valley, but it is just as famous for it’s natural mineral springs, the water from which is around 105 degrees and is piped in to the spas.
We got checked in and after waiting a few minutes a big dude named Jimmy came and got us and took us to our private spa room. He explained what we would be doing and how to get into the mud bath before leaving us to get undressed and covered in mud. Jimmy had explained to us that we couldn’t just step into the mud as the bottom of the bath has heating coils on it. We had to sit on the side, reach across to the handle (easier said than done if you have short arms) and then swing our legs in. We employed some form of those instructions and managed to get in without standing on the bottom, then we had to wriggle. The mud was really hot, and really thick and it was difficult to get in to it. You could lie in the mud and it kind of suspended you on top, so a lot of wriggling was involved to get in to and under the mud; then the bits that still weren’t covered we had to use our hands and scoop it over us. After giving us a few minutes to get covered up jimmy came back in and put a cold wash cloth on our heads and a mask on our faces, then he left us to relax in the mud. It was nice and very different, and quite relaxing if a little too hot to completely submerge our toes. We lay there for a little over ten minutes until it was time too get out; it’s too hot to stay in the bath any longer. Getting out was supposed to be the reverse of getting in but it was a lot more difficult since we were all wet and slippery. Mike found the heating coils on the bottom of the bath when he ‘fell’ back into the mud bath and had to put his hand out to stop himself – it was quite funny to watch a naked Mike wallowing in the mud!

The shower was the next stop to wash the mud off before getting in the spa. In the shower there were hand held sprayers which were a godsend to get in the places that the fixed showerhead just didn’t reach -You wouldn’t believe some of the places the mud got! While we were hosing off Jimmy filled our spa with hot spring water, and once we were relatively clean we got to relax in the spa for a while. I’m not sure what all was in the mineral water but it certainly made several body parts float.

The last part of the package was the cooling down which involved us lying in a darkened room, wrapped in blankets with ice cold washcloths on our foreheads and the backs of our neck. This was definitely Mike’s favourite part, I could tell by the snoring noises coming from his side of the room.
It was a fun experience, at least I thought so. I don’t think I need to do it again, but I enjoyed it and my skin is lovely and soft at the moment.
After leaving the spa we headed a little ways out of town to see the Old Faithful Geyser. It’s one of only three geysers in the world that have earned the ‘old faithful’ title due to their regular eruptions, one is in Yellowstone and the other is somewhere in New Zealand. The only time this geyser’s eruption is interrupted our delayed is if an earthquake is imminent. If it is not on time then an earthquake is likely in the next few weeks somewhere in the 500 miles surrounding the geyser. There was no delay today, and we arrived just in time to see the eruption. It was actually pretty impressive with steam and scalding water spraying up to 100 feet in the air. It was very cool, and it continued to spray for several minutes.

Mike: Geyser and goats cool! Mud bath, we did that!

On the same grounds as Old Faithful was a small petting zoo that had Jacob’s Four-Horn Sheep that looked like they had jester hats on, and also Tennessee Fainting Goats, although we didn’t see them ‘faint’. They don’t actually faint, but when they are scared or startled their muscles spasm for up to 10 seconds. When they are babies and this happens they tend to fall over, as they get old they learn to find something to lean against so they don’t fall over. The lady at the desk did warn us before we went to see them that they didn’t ‘faint’ easily, and it turns out she was right. Both the goats and the sheep had really evil looking eyes, like they were possessed, as there pupils were left to right rather than top to bottom – freaky.

To get back to the campground we drove south through the Napa Valley to Napa which is a beautiful ride, and like the drive to Calistoga, we saw more vineyards and wineries than I ever thought existed. Every piece of land is covered with grape vines, even peoples gardens, growing grapes to make every variety of wine. We stopped at a little park in Napa and had a picnic before heading home.

We got up this morning and went for a walk around the other part of the campground across the road from us and found it almost completely deserted. All the weekenders must have left after we got taken on the tour yesterday afternoon and now there are only a few RV’s left over there; it’s actually nice over there, but I prefer our side of the road. They do have some cool birds nesting under the bridge though, and bunches of geese on the river; all we have are some really noisy Blue Jays that are keeping a really close eye on our bird feeder.

Later this morning we headed back into Winters to pick up our mail and to get online, although instead of sitting in the park today we splashed out and sat at the coffee shop across the street; we even had coffee.
On the way back we saw a field that was full of cows and one buffalo – what’s the point of one buffalo, can you breed them with the cows? A bit further along the road Mike almost ran over a peacock that was trying to cross over, fortunately he had the sense to get out of the way – the peacock I mean, not Mike!
The rest of today was spent cleaning, exciting I know, but it has to be done although I probably could have picked a cooler day. At least it’s done now, as is the laundry.

Mike: Nice park, too many bugs on this side next to the river!

Neither one of us was up before 8 o’clock this morning, maybe because I was awake half the night listening to the awning flapping in the wind, and Mike was up at 4 o’clock taking down the sunscreen and putting the awning away. It was super windy most of the night and it has been most of today too – I guess that happens when you’re camping in a canyon!
After our lie in, we got showered and headed into Winters to get online and check out what happened in the world over night. Winters is a cute little town with a nice little park in the middle of it that had benches where we could sit and get online. It seems that a lot of people from our campground head over to Winters to check email and such on a regular basis. On such person sat next to us and in the space of five minutes must have asked 100 questions – seriously even I don’t ask that many!

We got all caught up on the news before heading off to Davis, which is about a half-hours drive from Winters. Davis is a college town but since school is already done for this year the city wasn’t too crowded. We had intended to visit The City of Davis Wetlands, which is a 400-acre environment that attracts more than 80 species of wildlife; what is unusual about it though is that it depends on storm water and treated wastewater runoff for its water source. I was looking forward to bird spotting, but when we got there the gate was closed and locked. It was supposed to be open but it wasn’t for some reason, so I didn’t get to see any wildlife. Never mind.
From Davis we headed south to Vacaville and visited Camping World to get some new bumper ends to replace the one we lost yesterday and then we did some food shopping since there’s not much close to the park.

Mike: Yeah, a Trader Joe's!

Traveling today, on a Sunday for the first time on a long while. Since we had no sewer hook up at Ponderosa we had to stop at the dump station this morning on the way out, so we got hooked up and headed towards the exit. The lay out of this park is really stupid as the dump station and air is at the exit and so while we were using it nobody else could leave the park. Thankfully there was no one using it or waiting and so we got down to business; while I cleaned Mike put air in the trailer tires. Another trailer pulled up just after we started but we were quick so he didn’t have long to wait. Then we headed out back the way we came almost two weeks ago. Just after we got on highway 50 a car drew along side us and was waving at us so we pulled over and checked out the trailer. At first we couldn’t see anything wrong, all the tires we good, tv antenna was down, then Mike noticed our bumper end was missing along with our sewer hose. Fortunately it must have just fallen out and after a short jog along the side of the highway I recovered our pipe.
Back on the road, we passed back by Sacramento, but instead of going north we kept on east until we hit the I505, and then went north for a few miles before heading east again through Winters and towards Lake Berryessa. The last 10 miles or so we along a windy road but it was fine, and before we knew it we’d arrived at the park.
This park, Canyon Creek, is set along both sides of highway 128, and when you first pull up to it it looks quite small but it is actually spread out along the river. We parked and Mike went across the road to check in. They do something a little different here than we’ve come across in any other park, they have a person on a golf cart that takes you around to show you the available spaces so you don’t have to pull the trailer all over the place to find a spot. She was very nice and directed us to the ones she thought would work best for us. We decided to be on the side of the road opposite to the river for a few reasons, mostly because that’s where the full hook-ups and the wifi are, but also because all the weekend people park along the river and almost all of them seem to have fifty kids.
It didn’t take us too long to get settled in to our space, which was a good thing, as it’s absolutely boiling here; the temperature is close to 95 degrees. I’m actually glad for only double digit heat, the lady who showed us around told us that yesterday it was 111 degrees here. If it stays this hot I think there might be a good chance of us actually using a swimming pool at a campground for the first time in two years.
The park seems to be quite nice, it’s lovely and green with lots of trees, and although we are close to the road it’s not too noisy. It’s in a canyon though, so we are surrounded by mountains, which means no phone service and even our Verizon mi-fi doesn’t work. There is internet at the lodge but it’s an ethernet hook-up so only one person at a time can use it and they don’t open the lodge till 9 o’clock in the morning; Mike’s been up for half his day by that time! I think we’ll be running into Winters on a regular basis for the next ten days.

Mike: No internet, no phone, it sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We headed back to Placerville this morning, not to the town proper but to Gold Bug Park to visit Gold Bug Mine. The mine, which used to be called Hattie was opened in 1888, and is a typical hard rock mine of the Mother Lode. We got to walk in to the 352-foot drift and see where and how the miners drilled and blasted away the rock in order to find gold.
We started on the self-guided tour that came with an audio guide and got to learn about how the miners worked and the native rock that they had to deal with. There was a guided tour going on ahead and we caught up to them and listened in for a while. The guides were really cool, very energetic, and explained about the blasting and powder monkeys and such, before giving us a demonstration of signaling with bells, and working by candle light. They did extinguish all the lights for a moment and the blackness was absolute – pretty scary.

After we finished up the tour we trekked over to the Joshua Hendy Stamp Mill and learned how the gold was extracted from the rock once it had been blasted from the mine. The rock was fed in to the stamp mill and then huge weights that weighed 1,000 pounds each and that rotate, would pound down on it breaking into smaller pieces. Apparently the noise when the stamps were working was astonishing, and could be heard in Placerville over a mile away. The volunteer at the mill turned on a miniature stamp mill for us and the noise from that was deafening, I can only imagine how loud the real thing was.

Mike: I missed the "mother load" too! I don't know what I was doing!

Afterwards we sat and had a nice picnic at the tables in the park. It was a nice day out, very interesting and in a beautiful quiet setting.

Second time is a charm. We attempted to visit Marshall Gold Discovery State Park yesterday only to discover that the museum was closed on Mondays; thankfully it’s literally a five-minute drive from the campground or Mike would have been mad. Today was a much better day, everything was open there, and we got to learn about the place where the California gold rush began.
We walked on the place where on January 24, 1848, James Marshall, while he was inspecting the waterway for John Sutter's new lumber mill, found gold flakes in a stream bed. It was this find that sparked one of the largest human migrations in history bringing more than 175,000 people to the area that is now Coloma, along the bank of the American River; many arriving in 1849 and were known as the ‘Forty-niners’.

Mike: I was just a little late for this period of history! I might have been rich!

The museum at the park is very well done and very informative, telling the story of Marshall and his partner in the lumber business, John Sutter, founder of Sacramento. The park, founded in 1942, has plaques telling the story of the town during the gold rush, and has many original buildings from the time period, including the jail, Marshall’s cabin, and buildings used by the Chinese immigrants that flocked to the area. And although the original sawmill was washed away during flooding in the 1850’s, a full size replica has been built.

 

 After spending a few hours wandering around and learning about the finding of gold we headed up the hill along to see The Marshall Monument which is a thirty one foot granite base with a 10’ 6” bronze statue of Marshall on top. It shows Marshall holding a gold nugget while pointing to the place where he first discovered gold. The monument was erected in 1890 and Marshall is buried beneath it.