#2 - Coveys Great Adventure - Cloverdale, Redwoods, Ferndale and Eureka

September, 2014

The odyssey continues…

The road into Dutcher Creek, Yikes.

We arrived in Cloverdale, CA, on August 25th. We were about a mile from the Russian River, at a small campground called Dutcher Creek RV Park. We had a great site right across from a nice pool and about 50 feet from the office insuring good wifi. This park was a real challenge to get into because the driveway has a 180º switchback and at least a 10º slope. We are over 60’ long when the car is hooked up and weigh about 26 tons, so the driveway was a challenge. We made it, but I was planning our decent since we arrived!

The homestead

Cloverdale is an interesting little town. It has a real downtown with a couple of restaurants, some shops and another good yogurt shop. The town has spent money to spruce up the area to attractive visitors and it shows. It has a good vibe with friendly people and enough stores and restaurants to keep folks happy.

The view through the windshield at Dutcher Creek

Cloverdale is about 15 miles from Healdsburg, which is the economic and cultural center of the Russian River valley wine district. Healdsburg has a large, interesting downtown area, filled with shops and restaurants, but bring money, it tends to be expensive. Like Paso, Healdsburg has a large park in the center of town that is the venue for all kinds of events throughout the year.  There are a number of tasting rooms in downtown Healdsburg, but getting out into the countryside and visiting the wineries is really the way to go.

We love to just drive around and spent several hours wandering the local roads, looking at the vineyards and getting a feel for this beautiful area. If you like getting way back of beyond, take RT 128 east from the center of Geyserville to Geyser Road. Ignore the signs and don’t turn back. Again, watch for the cows

in the road. This is the start of 16 miles of really challenging paved road, but the views are worth it. I kept asking Kayeanne why this road existed. It turns out it was built to build the largest geothermal power generating facility in the US in 1976. There is a reason this town is called “Geyserville!” For us, the road ended at the guard gate because visitors are NOT encouraged. As we started back we saw a small sign pointing to Cloverdale. That proved to be an even smaller, rougher, curvier road! Excellent! Riders note, these are great motorcycle roads!

Despite our storage limitations we did make it to two wineries, Pech Merle and J. Rickards. The latter was ok, but Pech Merle is worth a visit for the Syrah Rosé. Trust me, I don’t like Rosés, but it was great. The winemaker claims it is terrific with turkey and I’ll believe it.

Pier at Port Arena

We took a day trip over to Mendocino, had lunch in Port Arena at the Chowder House right on the water at the old harbor. The chowder wasn’t great, but the calamari and crab cakes were good and the view was interesting. The restaurant was filled with photos from roughly 1880 to 1940. It was fascinating to see the evolution of the area.

Again, we took the road less traveled over to the coast. Google the Skaggs Springs – Stewart Point Road from Dutcher Creek Road to US 1. I can’t believe they really put pavement on this terrain, but it is a gas, even in a minivan.  It looks like there a few more like it, too, so we may plan a return visit just to explore these roads. Riders, note this one, too.

We pulled out of Dutcher Creek on September 3^rd and had the first scare of the trip when the coach wouldn’t start after we fueled up.  I fiddled around for 15 minutes, not really knowing what I was doing and it restarted. We headed north for the Ancient Redwoods RV Park in Redcrest, CA, in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. I mistakenly turned the engine off to go register and it wouldn’t restart, leaving us stranded in the park driveway. Again, after much head scratching and aimless fiddling it started up as if nothing was wrong. We got into the site; made sure everything was positioned where we wanted it, shut the engine down and opened some wine. And then another bottle.

After much thought, a couple of false starts and Kayeanne’s assistance I think we may have figured out the problem, a bad relay in the starting circuit. I sincerely hope so. So far it has started 5 times without fail, so we are optimistic.

Ancient Redwoods is another good RV park. The wifi could be a little more robust, but that is the only complaint we have. Oh, except no cell service, at least no AT&T. We have to drive about 10 miles to Scoria to get bars.

Really, really big trees

We’ve hiked through a couple of redwood groves and were as impressed as we expected to be with the sheer size and majesty of these old trees. This park exists because John Rockefeller and a few of his friends visited the area in the ‘30s and were appalled that the lumber companies seemed determined to cut down every tree. Basically, he twisted the state’s arm to match his contribution to buy up much of the land that is now the state park. There is a lot more to the story, so check it out if you are interested. Better yet, go for a visit. The visitors center is really interesting and worth an hour or more reading the fascinating history of the park and the people and events that shaped this whole area.

It hasn’t all been trees. We’ve toured a few of the towns in the area. Fortuna doesn’t have a lot to recommend it except the Napa Autoparts store that finally came up with the relay we needed for the coach. Avoid the Hunan/Szechwan/Mandarin restaurant.

Ferndale was quite interesting. It has a number of turn of the century Victorian homes that have been rehabbed. The main street has several interesting shops and a neat market that features locally sourced foods. Scotia is another very interesting town. Scotia is one of the only remaining company towns in North America. You wouldn’t believe how big the lumber mill and associated lumberyard is. Unfortunately the museum closed for the season in August.

We spent a few hours in Eureka on Sunday. This is a large town that has seen better days. The collapse of the fishing and forest products industries has decimated this area. That said, there has been considerable development done to create “Old Downtown Eureka” with some success. There are several blocks of shops and restaurants that are worth exploring.  Of special note are TWO used book stores and a great bagel place. Eureka has also preserved a redwood grove near downtown as a city park. The dogs and I really enjoyed exploring that while Kayeanne went to church. Oh, and the local radio station at 100.3 FM plays outstanding rock and roll! It is easily a match for KPIG, and that is high praise indeed.

Schroeder and Lucy

A couple of you asked for a picture of the dogs. Here are Lucy (the big redhead) and Schroeder kicking back after a hard day exploring completely new territory. (Yes, the picture is fuzzy, I think my camera may be dying.)

Off to Oregon on the 11^th.  More to come.