We traveled further south to the Salinas Elks to stay for 2 nights. $25 a night for power and water. There is a dump station for an additional $5.   It’s basically a gravel parking lot, there are a few grassy areas to walk the dogs.

The most memorable excursion was to the Steinbeck museum.  I remember crying reading The Red Pony as a kid, and as recent as last year I listened to Travels With Charley on CD while on the road to Utah. Touring the museum I realize that I need to read some more of his books.  I remember reading a few of his books during high school, but really don’t remember much about them.  Also, I would like to watch some of the great movies that were made from his books.  Do you have a favorite Steinbeck book or movie?

I didn’t realize that he was a war correspondent, and had traveled as much as he did.  If you get a chance to tour the museum I highly recommend it.

After we left we drove by the Steinbeck house as a gorgeous sunset was in the making.

The next day we packed up for a long drive to Porterville.

 

Todd Legg told me that saying and I found it rather humorous.  Sonoma is definitely a good place to go to find great wines, and vinegars.

We moved to Petaluma Elks for 5 nights. $25 a night for full hookups.  Elbow room and a huge parking lot behind for dog running.

Our first day there Todd’s brother, Bruce, his wife, Nancy and grandson, Alexander stopped by for a visit.  We all went together to Rafy’s Pizza for lunch. Rafy is the son-in-law of Bruce and Nancy.  Rafy spent time in New York City where he learned the fine art of creating NY pizza.

Next stop was the Sonoma Portworks.  Tried a couple of their ports which were good, but what I was really impressed with was their vinegars.  One was made with muscat grapes and one with cabernet grapes. The flavors! Can’t wait to try cooking with them…or even drizzle them over fruit or ice cream. Yum!  Next door was a distillery, both the portworks and the distillery were dog friendly.  Petaluma has over 30 restaurants, breweries and wineries that are dog friendly. Definitely a pet friendly town.

The next day we headed to Glen Ellen to tour Jack London State Historic Park.   The park is also known as Jack London home and ranch.  I so enjoyed reading Jack London’s books growing up, especially Call of the Wild and White Fang.

I was really looking forward to exploring this park.  Sadly, but understandably, they had moved all the museum pieces to a safe location due to the recent fires.   We could still walk around the Beauty Ranch and view the cottages, horse barns and surrounding beautiful countryside.

The Wolf House ruins are there.  The Wolf  House was Jack London’s dream house and he started building it in 1911.  It was 15,000 square feet and had 26 rooms and 9 fireplaces.  Unfortunately, the house spontaneously combusted, one hot August night in 1913. They never had a chance to move in and he died before he was able to rebuild. Both he, and his wife, Charmian loved entertaining and having guests stay at their ranch.

Also along the trail is a gravesite.  “One day, when Charmian and Jack were riding over their property, they came upon the grave site of two pioneer children-David and Lilly Greenlaw. David had died in 1876, the year Jack London was born. Jack was quite moved by the lonely place where the children were buried and he said to Charmian that he would like to be buried in this place if he should die before her. So when Jack died later, Charmian had his ashes placed under this large volcanic rock. When Chamian died, her ashes were placed next to Jack’s under the same rock.”

For lunch we went to The Girl and the Fig,  a French restaurant in Sonoma.  Inside there is a beautiful antique bar and a country feel.  We chose to share a cheese & charcuterie platter.  Titled “The Works” we let our waiter choose 3 different selections of meat, and 3 different cheeses.  The meat and cheese is accompanied by apples and fruit compote, spiced nuts, house made fig cake and a baguette.  To drink I wanted something “figgy” so I ordered a Fig Kiss.  It was concocted of Figcello di Sonoma, St-Germain Liqueur and cranberry juice.   It was refreshing an oh so delicious. 🙂

 

We had a short stop at Sebastiani winery,  enjoyed looking at the wooden barrels with their engravings and the painting on the wall by the fireplace.

I spent a day of cleaning the coach and Jeep, the next day…and it took ALL day!  For a reward we went to Lagunitas for dinner.  It’s a brewery that has a great open feel and is very dog friendly.  They have grassy areas and water bowls set about.   A band was playing some great danceable music and they had an eclectic menu.  Todd and I both chose the the soy glazed chicken street tacos.  The tacos came with pickled onions and Asian slaw.  Delicious! Janet had the Dog Town Garden Sandwich.  She said it was also very good, and basically a salad between two pieces of bread.  I chose the Brown Shugga’ “Originally a failed attempt at our 1997 batch of Olde GanrlyWine Ale, resulting in an all-new-beer-style we like to call…. Irresponsible. ”  It was a enjoyable brew.

Back to the coaches to get a good nights sleep before heading to the Salinas Elks for two nights.

The last tour of a winery we chose to do from our base at Cloverdale Citrus Fair, was Korbel.

Korbel is a beautiful winery with an interesting history.  We took the tour so were able learn quite a bit, though it was too much to remember.  I highly recommend the tour if you have the opportunity.

The Korbel brothers were from Bohemia (todays western region of the Czech Republic). Francis Korbel was the frontrunner, with a colorful start: “According to family lore, Francis was in Prague in 1848 and fired the shot that started a revolution against the monarch of the Austrian Empire. The attempt to overthrow the ruling Hapsburgs failed, and the world would have to wait almost 70 years more before another gun shot mortally wounded Arch Duke Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of what had now become the Austro-Hungarian Empire, an act that led to World War I and the downfall of the Hapsburgs. For his part in revolutionary activity, young Korbel landed in Daliborka Prison. He managed to escape, however, reportedly with the help of his grandmother who provided civilian clothes that allowed him to stroll out an unlocked gate to freedom, casually smoking a cigar. 

Francis Korbel’s start was making cigars and cigar boxes.  He emmigrated to New York and then moved to San Francisco (traveling around the Isthmus of Panama).  It was there that he asked his brothers, Joseph and Anton to join him.  They originally purchased their Russian River land in Sonoma county in 1872 for the timber.  They, like all good entrepreneurs diversified into many directions to take advantage of all the possibilities available for business.

They did some farming, growing alfalfa, beets, corn, prunes and wheat and used some of the crops to feed cows and start a dairy.  At this time they also began to plant their vineyards.  The rest, as they say is history (and it is worth reading about, if you don’t have the chance to take the tour).   Because of their start in champagne was so long ago  they were grandfathered in to be allowed to sell their California Champagne, as Champagne.   Other than that only Champagne produced in the Champagne region of France can be called Champagne.

Besides seeing all the historical photos and memorabilia we watched a couple of movies on the history as well as the making of their Champagne.  We also got to taste a Natural Champagne which was dry, followed by a Blanc de Noirs-a little sweeter, then Moscato Frizzante sweeter still and finished up with a Sweet Rose-the sweetest.   They were all very enjoyable.

After we finished up our tour we were hungry and drove to Occidental. We pulled up to Negri’s Italian Dinners and Joe’s Bar, a restaurant that Todd and Janet had really enjoyed eating at before.

Walking in, you could tell that this was a well loved place by the locals.  It has been around since 1943.  Todd and I ordered Nonni’s Ravioli, a house made pasta, with beef, pork, swiss chard, herbs, and parmesan.   Janet ordered the calamari steak.  We chose to get the dinner version as it included a homemade minestrone, antipasto, salami, and a salad that had the most mouth-watering dressing on it.  The dressing, a blue cheese vinaigrette, is available for sale…normally.  They were so busy they couldn’t sell any that day, was I ever disappointed! 😦

 

Our only winery visit this day, was to the Francis Ford Coppola winery.  As can be expected the winery is opulent, and there is a lot of memorabilia from some of his most memorable films on different levels within the winery.   A large area holding of memorabilia from the Godfather, as well as the car and other items from the movie Tucker: The Man and His Dreams is held within.  There are also some smaller displays for Dracula, Apocalypse Now and a scale model ship from Marie Antoinette.

Two swimming pools are on the grounds, along with cabines (changing rooms).  “Francis Ford Coppola wanted to create a place for families to come and enjoy all the best things in life together. For years, he had seen children playing around the fountain at Inglenook, pleading with their parents to allow them to jump in. Francis always sympathized with the children, so he thought, Gee, the kids will want to go swimming, so let’s have swimming pools. “

Bocce ball courts are available for those who enjoy the sport.

The wine choices are extensive, and many collectors bottles are available that you can only buy at the winery.  Prices are from reasonable to incredible.  I did buy a Directors Cut 2014 Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel that was reasonably priced and very good.  It received 97 Pts, Double Gold, Best of Class-SF Intl Wine Comp and 91 Points, Gold – 2017 Critics Challenge  “Every bottle of Director’s Cut pays homage to the history of filmmaking with its wraparound label designed after a Zoetrope strip, one of the earliest moving picture devices. Each Director’s Cut label is a replica of a strip from Francis’s personal Zoetrope collection.”

When we left Coppola’s winery we were famished and headed for Healdsburg to look around and get something to eat.  We chose to eat at Journeyman Meat Co. owned by Peter Seghesio. There rules for the way their meats are raised:

“Our source farms must:

Employ humane and sustainable animal farming techniques

Raise antibiotic-free animals

Provide all natural, vegetarian diets

Allow animals to roam freely, never using industrial confinement operations

Raise heritage breed hogs and Black Angus cattle

Ensure that each animal lives a happy life-with only one bad day. ”

Todd found a quote from Pete Seghesio about Gene Cuneo (John, Paula’s (Janet’s sister) husbands father) that makes me wish I had had the opportunity to meet the man.

“He was one of the great pioneers of our industry” said Pete Seghesio, whose Healdsburg family winery has purchased grapes from Mr. Cuneo over the last 80 years. “He did so much for Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County and growers. “With Gene you had living history” said Seghesio, who recalled how Mr. Cuneo would often visit his tasting room and entertain visitors. “He was a wonderful story teller, a wise, wise person.”

Ah, about the food there…indescribable.  I really wish we had someplace like it in WA (if you know of one let me know!).   We ordered a salumi board, that had 6 varieties of their wonderful, house made salami.  Accompanying the salumi was pickled vegetable and fresh cheese.   Janet and I also split a hamburger, that was ground with bacon, had onion, lettuce and tomato and was served on a fresh baked bun. All their cooked foods are done in a wood fired oven. It was accompanied by roasted fingerling potatoes and cauliflower.  We drank one of the finest Pinot Noir wines I have ever tasted with it.

Back to the coaches, and our pups, took them out for some exercise then lazed around for the rest of the evening.

 

 

 

The nicest part about RV’ing after you retire, is you can stay in an area as long as you want before moving on.  We decided to stay another 2 days for a total of 5.  So much more to see and even that isn’t enough time to really see everything. I would enjoy a visit back to this area in the future.

Continuing visiting wineries, we went to a really memorable one next.  Ferrari Carano, with beautiful grounds, fountains ponds and sculptures, as well as the surrounding vineyards.   There are cork trees ( a kind of oak) which are amazing to touch and admire.  The first stripping of the cork bark occurs when the tree is between 15 and 20 years of age, with subsequent yields at 9 to 10 year intervals.

Inside the winery are framed menus of the meals served along with their wines at many White House dinners and lunches.  Hundreds of casks, thousands of bottles fill large rooms.  Definitely awe inspiring.

From there we had an appointment for a private tour of A. Rafanelli vineyards.  A more humble but still beautiful vineyard.  We got to taste some wine (Zinfandel, Merlot, and a Cabernet) and tour their cellars.  They use French oak for their casks, which creates a smoother taste than the American oak.   They also grow olives here, and make olive oil. Just beyond the parking lot is a nice little garden with persimmon trees!  This winery also supports Northwest Battle Buddies, a program to match up PTSD service dogs with Veterans.

Next was a visit to the Family wineries. On the grounds is a barn that houses a collection of Sterling trucks used with harvesting the grapes.  One thing I noticed at many of the wineries…the dog of choice in all the vineyards appears to be yellow labs. 😉

For dinner we met a friend of Todd and Janet’s at a top Italian restaurant in Cloverdale, Piacere. My choice for the evening was Chicken Veneziana .
Breast of chicken with artichoke and mushrooms in a light marsala sauce.

Back to the RV to get in my pajamas and relax with the girls.  Tomorrow we visit one of the most impressive places in the area, the Francis Ford Copolla winery.

 

We set up camp at the Cloverdale Citrus Fair.  Power, water for $25 a night plus tax..BUT also $5 per pet, per night.  Still a bargain in Sonoma County.  It’s mostly a big parking lot (though it’s been a great area for the dogs to race around and burn off some energy).

From here we went to visit some of Janet and Todd’s favorite wineries and locations.  We stopped by a large fenced dog park up by Lake Sonoma, a reservoir south of Healdsburg. A couple of agility pieces are there as well as a few balls and a faucet with a water dish. Mostly it’s just a large fully fenced area where they can stretch their legs. We almost had the park to ourselves, except for one lady with two standard poodles and a Golden Retriever.    I was hoping to get the girls in swimming in the lake, though we haven’t made it there yet. I guess they even have houseboats you can rent on the lake.

One of our first stops was to Janet’s sister, Paula’s house.   She is the widow of John Cuneo, the son of a 2nd generation grape grower, Gene Cuneo.   Gene had a fascinating history here in the Dry Creek area.  This is from his obituary: “Gene was born on Oct. 10, 1912 in San Francisco to John and Emilia Cuneo, a mail order bride that his father had sent for from Italy in 1909. His father, who immigrated to the United States from Genoa, Italy in 1900 at the age of 17, worked as an apprenticed shoemaker, then a few years later came to Healdsburg where his brother Joseph Cuneo had a ranch. When Gene was 4 years old his family bought their Dry Creek Valley ranch where he lived for 89 years. He was part of a large extended Italian family that farmed prunes and grapes in the Dry Creek Valley and Alexander Valley since the early 1900s. Gene and his cousin, Eugene Si” Saini, who preceded him in death on Oct. 31, 2006, were friends and business partners for over 56 years. Following in the footsteps of the ranching and grape growing partnership of their fathers, John Cuneo and Mike Saini, Gene and Si operated as a strong team to develop the unique agricultural characteristics of Dry Creek Valley and Alexander Valley.
In 1962 Gene helped found the California North Coast Grape Growers Association, which represented 800 members in the North Coast counties of Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino. He served on the board from 1972 until 1993 and as president in 1975 and 1976. He was made an honorary director in 1993 and presented, by then Senator Mike Thompson, with the &#8220California State Senate Certificate of Recognition,” in appreciation of dedicated service to the North Coast Grape Growers. From 1956 to 1987 he served on the Sonoma County Co-op board of directors, holding the office of treasurer for 17 years. He also served on the Sunsweet board of directors from 1974-1984.

Known as a man of great vitality, character and integrity, Gene worked tirelessly in agricultural conservation and preservation issues in the Valley. In 1968 Cuneo and Saini Vineyards won the annual Soil Conservation award given by the County of Sonoma to stem erosion on Dry Creek, and in 1992 also received an award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society honored Gene in 2004 at their Sixth Annual Pioneer Awards Dinner.”

Paula spends as much time as she can here, and I can see why, it’s a beautiful location.

We went to the Dry Creek General Store for lunch. It’s an Italian deli with many delicious choices and a great selection of gifts to peruse.   The store was established in 1881.  Outside seating is available, making it pet friendly, if you wanted to stop for some refreshments and enjoy the scenery.   I had a Prosciutto di Parma sandwich with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, olive oil and oregano on a sour roll. It was very good. Janet had a curried chicken salad sandwich and Todd had a French dip that gruyere cheese and carmelized onions. They both enjoyed their choices.

Day 2 we hit the Seghesio vineyards.  This is where some of the grapes from the Cuneo farms made their way into some very fine wine.  The vineyard also had a bocce ball court which was fun to check out.   For lunch we went to Giorgio’s, a great little Italian restaurant that is located in an old house that was owned by Gene Cuneo’s brother.  I had Eggplant Parmiagiana and it was delicious. Their salad comes out with a Italian vinaigrette in a Chianti bottle, which really was enjoyable.

 

Next, the winery tour continued, with visits to Foppiano (est 1896), Bacigalupi (a favorite, especially once I found out it means “kiss the wolf”) :), and Landmark vineyard at Hop Kiln Estate.

We stopped at Wilson winery to check out their coyote sculpture. It originated at the Burning Man festival and was bought by the Wilson winery.  I loved it! It’s head swivels around when the wind blows.  It’s tail is metal bristles.

Driving around some more, we passed Raymond Burr’s vineyards.  Sadly, they were closed indefinitely.  Stopped at a quaint farm vineyard, Preston, that had fresh eggs, vegetables, olives, olive oil as well as wine.

Our last stop for the day, was at Bella vineyard and wine “cave”.  The cave is manmade but still cool to look around in.  I’ll write about the next two days in my next post.

 

Heading south on hwy 101 from Eureka, our destination was Cloverdale Citrus Fair in Cloverdale.  We motored along the twists and turns, climbs and descents of Hwy 101.

Suddenly, I heard a noise I knew wasn’t good…right front tire going flat.  No shoulder to pull off on, I used my walkie talkie to let Todd and Janet know my predicament.  They pulled over as far as they could and stopped and I pulled up behind them.  I say we were pulled over as far as we could but we were basically sitting in one lane of traffic.

The scary part was this stretch of road went straight, then a couple of curves and heading downhill.  The semis and cars were traveling a high rate of speed as they came around the corner to where we were sitting.  I cringed watching the cars and trucks come around the corner and swerve into the other lane, having to break or speed up to avoid the people that were already traveling in that lane.

Todd walked back and put safety triangles in place and stood motioning for people to move over.  The cell service was very spotty and calls for help kept getting dropped.  Finally AAA (which told me they didn’t cover my RV) said they’d call CHP and let them know we needed help with directing traffic.  Who showed up first was a fire truck and he helped by parking his truck with his lights going further back from the triangles.

Probably about an hour later a CHP officer showed up. He was really worried about where we were sitting (probably as much as we were!) saying that there were truckers that were drunk or on Meth and wouldn’t be able to maneuver their trucks over to keep from hitting us.   He told me there was a pull out further down the mountain and to just drive slow on the flat tire.  Todd and Janet led the way.  As we got close to the turn out, the officer passed us and went across to stop the traffic to let us cross the northbound lanes to the pull out.

Officer Jessup was very helpful.  He offered to call a couple of tow truck companies.  Though when they were reached they said they had met their quotas for the day, or just really didn’t want to come out to help.  We were over 40 miles away from the closest town.  He then suggested a Les Schwab (even though he said he thought they were overpriced) from the next town south, Willits.

Officer Jessup stopped by again to see how we were doing and to offer a suggestion of using one of the dual tires to limp the RV into the next town if we didn’t want to buy a new tire and couldn’t access the spare.  We chatted about how he wanted to RV when he retired and how he was impressed to run into people even in their 90s that were still traveling.

I called Les Schwab and they said they would send a truck out, and that it was $105 an hour. (we found out the tow trucks were $185 an hour so that was a bargain!).  Todd tried to get my spare out (it’s stowed under the back end of the RV) but was unable to get it released, as I’m missing one piece of the tool that cranks it down.

When the fellow from Les Schwab got there he said he wouldn’t be able to get to the spare either so we’d have to replace the tire with the one he brought.  The one I had drove on was ruined. Four hours later we were driving towards Willits so he could balance the tire.  The total cost was close to $600.

I had bought my tires from Discount Tires, saving myself over $500, but I wonder if I wouldn’t have been better having bought from Les Schwab. I now have a Toyo tire on the right front, all the rest are Michelins.

One good thing is I did buy a replacement policy on those tires,  they were bought new about 4 months ago.  So they will pay me the replacement cost of what a Michelin tire would have been…hopefully it’s close to what I paid for the Toyo.  Also, my RV insurance Progressive, may pay most, if not all of the service call.  I’ll let you know what ends up happening.  AND I will be looking to buy  the piece I am missing for getting my spare down as soon as possible!

I just have to say how much I appreciated all the help that we received from Officer Jessup of the California Highway Patrol.  Also, the fireman, whose name I didn’t get, that worked to keep us safe until the CHP got there.  Of course, I also have to mention Todd and Janet Legg who risked their safety staying with me and directing traffic around where we were stranded.

 

We drove south from Eureka to tour the Avenue of Giants. I was in my 20s the last time I had visited the area.   The trees never fail to impress me.   It’s humbling to think of just how long they have been on this earth.

Entering some of the groves the temperature drops dramatically.  The sunlight is filtered to almost non-existence.  The heady smell of the earth just about takes your breath away.  I’m always drawn to hold my hands to the bark, feeling like I can get the sense of energy from each tree.

The grove that we chose to spend the most time in was Founders Grove.  We were amazed with the trees that were burned out all the way through and still were growing up above.  The huge burls, and the fauna growing on the downed trees caused us to pause in wonder.  Where one tree had fallen, the size of the splintered wood was awe inspiring.  I can’t imagine the sound of one of these giants falling.

I’m glad that there have been people that have dedicated their lives to saving these majestic trees. It is so important for all generations to be able to experience them.  I hope people choose to continue preserving them for generations to come.

 

Heading into California, you see things like Eucalyptus trees and Coastal Redwoods, and you know you are not in the Pacific Northwest anymore.

After dropping off the RV we headed to Samoa beach to run the dogs. ‘Samoa was given its current name in honor of a contemporary crisis in the Samoan Islands in 1890s. It was assumed that its harbor was similar to the harbor of Pago Pago in American Samoa, and the town was consequentially named Samoa. It was originally known as Brownsville, named for James D.H. Brown, who was the owner of a dairy ranch established in 1859.’-wikipedia (see previous post for pics of dogs on Samoa Beach).

Having worked up an appetite we went to the Samoan Cookhouse, one of the last remaining lumber style cookhouses catering to the lumberjacks.  There were historic pictures of all the enormous trees that they logged and the culture surrounding the logging community throughout the cookhouse.

 

The food was plentiful and delicious. We arrived in time to have breakfast which included orange juice, coffee, tea, scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, link sausage and French toast made with fresh baked bread.

 

Driving through the historic part of Eureka you see awe-inspiring homes many built of redwood.  One of the best known homes is the Carson Mansion (first pic).  In addition to the redwood, primavera or “white mahogany” from Central American, as well as other exotic woods and onyx front the Philippines, India, Central America and Mexico were used in the building of the mansion.  I really would like to return here, there is so much more to see and do.   The next post will be on our tour through the Avenue of the Giants.