It’s all good

Really, it is.  But sometimes it is also funny.  When we arrived in Brookings yesterday, we both had taste buds set on the perfect fish and chips at the funky little restaurant we found last fall.  Of course, being a small town, and a funky little restaurant, you never know when they will actually be open.  I had the bright idea, “Let’s run down to the harbor before we get the rig out of storage and make sure the Chetco Café is open today!”  Smart idea.  Mo went inside and got the hi ho from the help that they were open until 7 tonight. 

Yesterday afternoon, in all that gorgeous sunshine, we ambled around town, checking on some of the different properties we have been eyeing, and then ambled right back down to the harbor for a mouth watering supper.  Except…as we pulled up, at a few minutes before 5PM, the last car pulled out and a big CLOSED sign was on the door.  Foiled again.

We then ambled nearby to another place touting fish and chips and thought we might give it a try.  People inside laughing and eating, locked doors?!  Oh.  It is 5:01 on a Sunday in Brookings Harbor.  We seem to repeat this story often when we come to Brookings in one form or another, but we didn’t give up and ended up at a place called the “onion grill” with a sign that said, Steaks, Seafood, and Chinese Food.  Hmmm.  Once inside we had our choice of an American or Chinese menu.  Well, what can it say.  It IS a small town.  The fish and chips were adequate, the service was fine, the ambience was filled with many retired folks slipping in from afternoon services and they all seemed to know the very cheery and friendly Chinese lady running the shop.

I knew this day would probably be rainy, so wasn’t the least bit surprised to see clouds when I woke this morning.  Time to drive south.  A quick check of the weather confirmed what I already knew. Rain and more rain for every destination south.  Ah well.  We are cozy and we are on the road and we will have fun, rain or shine.  The Weatherunderground cheered me up considerably when I saw that in that moment it was exactly 14 degrees in Klamath Falls.  Good to be where the chill is in the 40’s not the teens. Did someone say it is March?

We had a perfect plan.  I would drive the Tracker to the quilt shop while Mo took the MoHo on down the road somewhere for us to meet after my shopping spree and hook up. Perfect.  Forty five minutes later I left the shop with a large bag of goodies and went off to find Mo and the MoHo.  Pulled in behind her to hook up and….hmmmm….no hitch?  Seems as though Mo had left the hitch back at the perfect camp site, pretty as you please, thinking that maybe we might want to get into the back garage of the rig before morning.  (Our hitch gets in the way of our drop down spare tire so we usually take it out when we are camped and want our campfire chairs)

So back we went again, one more time backtracking through town to Harris Beach.  The park was quiet, nearly empty, and our hitch was sitting right where we left it the hour before.  Any other time we would have hooked up right away, but not this time.  Those hitch stingers aren’t cheap, so we were glad it was still there.

On a good note, the last time we put the rig in storage we made sure the tank was full.  Rumors were already flying a month ago about rising gas prices and we did OK on that one.  Filled her up at 3.73 per gallon and today the price at Freddie’s is 3.99.  Of course, tomorrow when we fill up in California the cheapest  price I have found so far on Gas Buddy is 4.49.  I am wondering just how much this will dampen the travel plans of many of us out there.  As happened before, it seemed that most RV’rs kept on driving, but ate out less and camped cheaper when possible.  Giving up our freedom still isn’t an option.  What would the price of gas have to be for you to stop driving?  I still can’t answer that question for myself yet, hope I don’t have to.

It was a very gray and I hate to admit it, a rather boring day.  Hence the rather boring photos.  We drove south again on 101, along the ocean for a time, winding around the curvy, rough, landslide prone roads.  We drove through the deep darkness of the redwoods on a cloudy, gray, cold day.  Neither of us cared much for getting out of the rig and we just kept driving.  We talked about all the sights we have seen on this road.  We passed Big Lagoon, and Stone Lagoon, and some kayak launches.  No kayaks on this trip and we were glad we didn’t have them since it is so cold and wet.

We passed our turn to the Lost Coast from the trip last year, we passed the turn to Loleta Cheese Company where we usually buy fabulous cheese, we drove on by the Eel River and the turn to Ferndale where we like to take photos of the Victorian buildings. All places we have enjoyed so much in the past, several times. 

We thought that maybe we have driven this road too many times, and lamented that we have to drive too far now to get to anywhere we haven’t driven before.  Then I remembered last year and how the only way we could get anywhere was to travel down I-5.  Ugh.  This is WAY more entertaining than driving down I-5.  I knitted for awhile, I played with my pile of colorful fabrics, and in just a short 185 miles we turned into the Richardson Grove RV Park. 

We learned the hard way last time that we need to stop this far north of the Bay Area to avoid getting trapped into a very expensive night in a not so comfortable park.  Here the Passport America gets us a good nights rest for 16.50, full hookups, no cable. Mo found to her dismay that the electric cable to the Tracker had come undone and was all mangled.  Who knows how long we drove without lights.  We piled into the car for the 7 mile trip back to Garberville with hopes of finding some place to buy the part.  Now I would imagine that at times, Garberville could be kind of cute, but cute doesn’t exactly equate to a part for a Toad.  Lucky for us, however, Napa auto parts was in town, was still open, and had the part.  Back to camp in the rain, winding through the truly gorgeous Richardson Grove, I wished for more light and a camera, and no rain, so we could maybe stop and wander.  I am from Oregon, I should know how to hike in the rain and love it, right? Not.

Once back home, I  put the bbq out on the wet picnic table and let the raindrops sizzle on the top as it got hot.  I have to say that dinner was amazing.  I bbq’d the chicken breasts with olive oil and garlic, and topped them off with a drizzle of the habanero pineapple jam, cut up some leaf lettuce and a tomato and topped that off with the award winning Rogue Blue Cheese and some 18 year old pomegranate balsamic vinegar, split half a baked potato from the microwave with Mo and settled down with our cute plastic wine glasses from the festival and we had ourselves a feast.

Tomorrow we will leave early in the rain, navigate the Bay Area and finally arrive somewhere new tomorrow evening.  I think I saw a lone group of poppies today, all closed up in the rain, but they gave me hope for the drive south.  The grass is getting greener, and I see hints of bursting spring leaves on the lower shrubs and on a few of the willows along the creeks.  There are daffodils here and there along the road.  When I think it may have been a bit of a boring day, I just have to go look at the photos of the snow at home.