September 19 North on Hwy 1

 

Thursday, September 19  North on Hwy 1

I see them out there.  They pop their heads out of the ground, then run.  I want one!  I will try to catch one if my human lets me!

Yesterday, when we returned from our pedal ride, it was not only overcast, but the fog was creeping in.  It stayed overnight.  On mornings like this, it is sometimes hard to get myself going.  Normally, I get up, have a bit of coffee and head for my walk.  But since I am rehabbing my knee, there are a whole lot of exercises I need to do before all my normal stuff.  That means sometimes getting a late start.  Since we are leaving today, I really don’t want to fiddlefart around so off I go.  Spouse goes with me as we walk the ‘hood’.  Spouse brought a plastic bag with him so he could harvest some of the wild blackberries.  You gotta know just when they are ripe, nice and juicy.  If they don’t come off the vine easily, they are not ready.  Some times, they are black out front, but still red behind.  Don’t let them fool you

Back at Artee, while Spouse is getting things ready, I walk Rudy.  There are some burrowing critters here and Rudy wants one.  He runs to a whole in the ground and waits… and sniffs…  Why won’t it pop its head up?  Sorry, Bub… time to go.

Spouse reloaded our Garmin to see if she works.  She does I think, but I don’t trust her.  We turn north on Hwy 1, heading to the 101 north.  It is about a 45 mile drive to the intersection.  Hwy 1 at this point, does not have the perilous drop-offs like the more southern part of it. It is curvy at times, and not at others.  The ocean is on our left, when we can see through the fog.  On the right, there are rolling hills some heavily forested, others with stands of Pampas Grass.  Pampas Grass grows wild up here in the north.  You can see their pink feathery heads on rocky walls as well as open fields.  The last half of the drive is through a redwood forest and the road is quite curvy.  The road is in good condition so it is ok to navigate.  But, when you see lots of motorcycles on the road, that means we who are towing are not enjoying it!

Ultimately we make it to 101.  It is a two lane highway here, but it opens up after a bit, then gets smaller for a bit.  It winds, then it opens up for good.  We did try and go to a campground off the road, but turns out it was closed.  The roads are heavily forested.  We cross a river, we pass through a redwood forest.  We may have only gone 100 miles today, but it was a long ride and we were both a bit tired.  It was already close to 3 so we saw a sign for RVs and turned off the hwy.  We are about 27 miles south of Eureka.  Stafford RV park is a mom and pop operation.  It is not a modern park, which suits us just fine.  There is a huge apple tree that gave us some of her fruit.  The park has its own redwood grove with tent camping sites.  There is a truly magical cottage built coming out of a redwood stump.  Total charm!  We are just going to overnight here, not even disconnecting.