Garberville and the redwoods

Sunday, August 16th – Today will be an easy kick-back day. It unfolded slowly with a late sleep-in, slow romp for Gizmo, two cups of coffee and a relaxing shower. Sometime around 10-ish, we took off for Garberville. This portion of 101 is a mostly two-lane, curving and winding (“winding” is different than “curving”…lots of “curving” equals “winding”) road. We drove about 40 mph most of the way. We were about 20 minutes into the trip when a white Cal Fire pickup went by me with its red lights on. I kept watching behind me as we travelled and, during the next 30 minutes or so, about six more fire rigs went by. We passed the turnoff to Highway 1 at Leggett and soon started smelling smoke. It got slightly hazy and we soon saw actual smoke in the distance. We didn’t exactly know what to expect with a good portion of California now in flames and were hoping we could get through before they had to shut down the road. As it turned out, the fire was on the east side of the road and looked to be pretty much under control. We saw at least two water-dropping helicopters and four to five hand crews working the fire. We continued on.

We got to Benbow and pulled into the Richardson Grove Campground and RV Park. This was a Passport America park and we got a two-night full hookup stay for $28! We pulled into our assigned site and got set up. Shortly after setting up, a beat-up old bus(?) pulled in to our left. It had the faded markings of the “Oaktown Department of Korrections” emblazoned on its sides. It had a car battery sitting on the roof by a vent, probably to power a ventilation fan and another bigger house fan positioned in the door. The occupants emerged from the bus and started setting up their space. They put what I would describe as three “tiki-heads” on the table for decorations and two spare tires against the front of the bus. Now…how do I describe them? Probably as punk hippies. The male had long shorts, socks that went up to his knees and a shaved head except for a spiked Mohawk haircut. The female portion of the team was dressed in a semi-long, hippie-style skirt and dreadlocks that were almost to her knees. Interesting! They did have a good-looking dog though. I think it might have been a Jack Russell. What the hell…to each his own.

After a quick lunch, we took off to visit the RV park in Benbow where we will be staying on the caravan. What a great park! They have nice paved interior roads and easy pull-throughs. Every site looks like it will handle a 40-footer. This will be a piece of cake. It has its own golf course for those who wish to imbibe. After checking out the park, we drove into the thriving metropolis of Garberville. Both Claudia and I were expecting a bigger town. Nope! All we got was about a five-block main drag. Maybe there’s more to it but we sure didn’t see it. We got lots of good info from several sources and headed back home for a refreshing drink. I settled on a gin and tonic, Claudia had water and Gismo slurped up an ice cube. What a life!

The next day was “See the Giant Redwoods Day!” and we wanted to get started early. I jumped out of bed, let Gizmo out of his cage and romped him quickly. He ran back into the house and jumped in bed with Claudia. All he wanted to do was play. Anyway, we got up, fed Giz and Valentino, took showers, had breakfast and were finally ready to go. We left the house and headed north around 11:00, which is “early” for us on this part of the trip.

We first drove over to the Benbow Inn for a look-see.


Benbow Inn


Rear lawn view

This is a very beautiful old inn that has been around for many years. It is first class and well worth a visit. After visiting the Inn, we headed north, straight to Scotia to check out the sawmill and look around. We found a great-looking museum with a train, steam engine

and a really cute donkey!

Steam donkey

After petting the donkey, I crossed the street to look at the local movie theater


Scotia movie theater

before jumping back on 101 and heading south to do the Avenue of the Giants. The 32-mile trip was magnificent! It was hard to pick out the “best” picture but here are a couple.

About halfway down the Avenue, we came to Myers Flat and the drive-thru tree. As we were on a scouting trip for the caravan, they let us go in and look. I would NOT recommend that anyone pay the $6.00 entrance fee to drive through the tree but would give the nod for a $3.00 walk-in charge to see it and the tree houses.

Drive-thru tree

Tree houses

I was glad I had deer whistles mounted on the grille the car. The only problem was that they start working at 35 mph and we were driving about 30 for most of the trip. I really can’t say that deer whistles DO work, but you sure know when they DON’T! On the way back to the RV park, we stopped at one of the many tourist traps to look around.

Bigfoot

We really had to hold back, but we left without buying anything. Maybe next time!

When we got home, we started categorizing all the stuff we have picked up the past few days. We then called Ron and Juanita with the latest information. They were in Crescent City so we quickly re-arranged our very tentative and flexible schedule and arranged to meet them in Eureka on Wednesday. We are actually going there tomorrow but they won’t be in until Wednesday. We will get to compare notes face-to-face and get the trip logs and Wagonmaster Log for the first half of the trip. Finally, something concrete to work with. We will then move on to Redding on Thursday…maybe!