March 27, 2024 (Wed)
8:45 am Garlic Gilroy RV Park, Gilroy, CA
This is a slack day for us, so we mostly lounge around Harvey all day. Gini returns to the fabulous Salvation Army Store that’s across the street, but doesn’t find any more treasures. Also, it’s raining and Harvey is snug and cozy and we enjoy reading our books
Harvey at our very urban campsite
We would swim in the pool, but it’s closed. Robert asks why.
“Well, it rained recently,” was the reply.
“I don’t mind getting wet when I go swimming,” says Robert.
“But it’s not heated, so it’s too cold,” says the front desk person.
Hmm, seems like it would always be too cold, whether it rains or not. Robert recognizes when he’s not going to get any kind of sensible answer, so he decides it’s Laundry Day instead. At least the laundry room understands quarters…
Day 43 Travel
Our travel on Day 43 (Wed)
March 28, 2024 (Thu)
9:30 am Gilroy, CA
Robert gets up early (per usual) and decides to calculate our expenses so far. This has been our longest trip in Harvey (over six weeks!), so there should be a pretty good average of what things cost.
Turns out that it costs us about $192 a day to travel in Harvey. Surprisingly, the biggest part of the expense was food at $72, then RV parks at an average of $66, and then gas at $36 a day. Granted, we spent about three weeks in Borrego Springs, rather than traveling every day. Plus we eat out a lot, but we still thought that gas would be a bigger chunk of the expenses.
We do note, that the last time we took a car trip (to visit Robert’s sister in Nevada), hotel rooms ran between $150 and $200 a night, so Harvey is cheaper!
We could lower this cost more by boondocking more and preparing more meals in Harvey, but we can afford to eat out, so we do.
10:30 am
Process revision when emptying the waste tank
Okay, two new adjustments to the Waste Tank Emptying process:
The sewage hose has a special connector to Harvey. There are three bumps that connect the hose to Harvey. All three of the bumps need to be in place. If only one of those bumps is in place, fluids will not flow down the hose, but onto the feet of the person emptying the tank.
There should always be a second person standing by with the fresh water hose, in case the first person doesn’t secure the hose properly and gets poop all over his feet and would like to have his feet quickly washed off.
Robert did not follow this procedure and finds himself hollering, “PLEASE COME OUTSIDE NOW! My feet are swimming in poop!”
10:55 am Gilroy, CA
We’re off! Yesterday, in the brief trips we took with Harvey, he was having a Voodoo day. Today, he settles in and runs correctly. We shrug and quit trying to figure it out.
12:30 pm San Francisco, CA
We knew we’d have to get past San Francisco one way or another, and we also knew that one of the routes involved paying tolls. We did this once before and since we don’t have the electronic toll pass, they mail us a toll charge and it ends up being ten bucks and we’d rather not.
We ask Siri to avoid tolls and it turns out that this route puts us through some scenic neighborhoods and across the Golden Gate bridge (as seen in Star Trek IV!)
Houses in San Francisco
The houses are right next to each other in this part of the world. Maybe the yards are out back? We especially like the neighborhood parks, as they have lots of very large trees.
Traffic is slow, but nothing like rush hour in Seattle, so we breeze right through it. Then we’re on to the bridge!
Golden Gate bridge looming ahead!
It’s all very picturesque and just like all the pictures. We take some pictures to add to the trillions of existing ones, decide not to stop, and move on.
In the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge
3:30 pm Ukiah, CA
We land in Ukiah, because it looked pretty big on the map, and it does have a couple of square blocks of downtown (which makes it huge for around here). We do some hunting for an RV site, because several of the sites got very bad reviews (we don’t believe all the reviews, but when four of them mention the overflowing toilets, we pay attention).
The place we end up at is certainly cheap ($37 a night!), but the restrooms are closed. No worries, we have our own restroom!
We park in the assigned grassy area with patches of soggy mud. Then the guy next to us comes over and advises us to move our rig forward more.
“When it rains, like it’s supposed to do tonight and for a couple of days, this whole area turns into a river of mud, and you can get your rig stuck here.”
We don’t really want to stay longer than one night, so we thank him and move Harvey closer to the road.
Day 44 Travel
Our travel on Day 44 (Thu)
March 29, 2024 (Fri)
8:00 am Redwood Empire Fair & Event Center RV Park, Ukiah, CA
We’ve been listening to people start their rigs and leave since about five this morning (well, one of us has, the other one just turns over and keeps sleeping). It’s drizzling and increasingly muddy. With visions of muddy rivers and Harvey having to be towed out of the quicksand, we decide to pull out early.
Beginning the day at our muddy campsite—but not a river of mud!
9:25 am Highway 101 Northbound
This part of Highway 101 is pretty isolated. There are lots of Redwood trees (some of them largish), but not many towns. Because we left in a hurry, we haven’t had breakfast yet, so we start looking for a place to stop.
This is what driving on Hwy 101 through Redwood country looks like
First up, we see the icon on a blue sign that says “Restaurant Here” for South Leggett. We get off and head down the road, which gets more and more rural with no sign of any restaurant. Finally, the road just ends. Whoops! Turn around!
Next we stop at Leggett proper, which our GPS assures us has a restaurant. “Had” is the better term, as it’s closed.
But the “Drive Through Tree” attraction is just down the road—we bet they will have a lovely little café, maybe with tree-shaped donuts (so you can drive your hand right through them!).
Nope. Also, it costs $15 to see a tree you could drive through (we couldn’t drive through it—Harvey is too fat). But the helpful attendant says there’s a grill, just five minutes down the road.
There is, in fact, a grill. A closed grill, which opens at 11:00. If we wait that long, we’ll be gnawing on our arms. On down the road!
The town of Piercy saves us some time by telling us “No Services,” right on the sign.
Gini locates a café at a place called One Log House (we think it means that the house is made from one big log, but we’re too hungry to concentrate). We find it! There is a café!
Well, if we wanted to have pot brownies for breakfast, we would have been set
The pot dispensary is the only thing open. On to Benbow!
Nope, the folk of Benbow must eat at home a lot, because they can’t go out and eat.
10:25 am Eel River Café, Garberville, CA
Yes, we could have just pulled over and fired up Harvey’s stove and made our own breakfast. But by this point, it had become a Quest, and if you’re tasked with finding the True Ring, you don’t stop!
Finally, Garberville delivers. Not only is there an Eel River Café, but it’s open, and it’s a classic American Diner, complete with uncomfortable stools to sit on! We can tell we’re still in California, because everything comes with avocado (“How much avocado would you like on your Eggs Benedict?”).
Breakfast at last!
12:50 pm Eureka, CA
Although marijuana is legal in California, and has been for some time, we haven’t seen much evidence of it. Unlike Seattle, where there are billboards for pot stores and big signs saying “Stop for Pot here!” In fact, the first pot store we saw in the last six weeks was the one at the closed café earlier today.
In Eureka, though, there’s a dispensary on every block! Lots of them (all called “Dispensaries,” not Pot Stores). Apparently, folks around here like to get high a lot.
1:30 pm Arcata ,CA
We find a nice RV park just north of Eureka. Since we’ve done two days of travel, we’ll take an extra day here to rest up. We pay about $67 a night (the average rate!).
The pool isn’t open. Since Gini enjoys hot tubs, she decides to call and ask about hot tub availability.
“Yes, we have a hot tub, but it’s not up and running,” says the front desk person.
Gini asks when it will be running.
“Dunno. It hasn’t worked since 2021,” is the reply.
Well, they do have a hot tub. One thing we’ve learned in our travels—the further north you go, the less likely the pool will work.
Harvey has his own personal Redwood tree—although not yet a giant
Day 45 Travel
Our travel on Day 45 (Thu)
Gini & Robert
Harvey Staff