2008 Travel - Installment #5

Our last stop before heading home was with friends in Willits, California – they have the best of both worlds – in the middle of the redwoods and 30 miles from the ocean. Our animal repertoire has grown as you can see by the pictures…a neighborhood dog sitting in the most unusual position, the sea lions down by the Noyo Harbor near Fort Brag, the typical sea gull on piling, and two small deer just watching us as we stopped by the side of the road.




















Our friends took us on a sight seeing tour of the area…Mendocino was my favorite and a place I would like to go back to for a longer visit. Pictures are of some of the many items in a small exquisite store – "Highlight" http://www.thehighlightgallery.com/ – zoom up to notice the prices of this "art".
Another cute store was called "Out of this World" http://www.discountbinoculars.com/About-DB.html

In the visitor’s center, they have a model of historic Mendocino village circa 1890. We took a picture of one of the homes in Mendocino which is typical of all of them – it seems filmmakers have used Mendocino County for more than 100 years (beginning in 1904) – the one filmed there that most everyone will know is "Murder, She wrote", along with James Dean’s "East of Eden", "Same time, Next Year", and "The Fugitive". http://www.mendocinocoast.com/

Other sites and good pictures are below - the skidder for logs, the redwood logs, the coast line, and the marina.








One last picture of a golf course for our blog this year – a golf course in the redwoods. As I have walked around courses with my brothers and sons, I notice they try to go over a tree at times – would like to see any of them try it in the redwoods.



On Thursday, March 20, Day 86 of our 2008 winter journey, we headed for home driving through the California scenic highway 101 through the redwoods. When we got to Crescent City, Ca, we headed northeast to get to Interstate 5. Friday, we were able to maneuver through Portland, and head down Interstate 84 with out any trouble until a tire on the tow dolly blew out – picture shows what "blow out" means to us. The only way I could make Tony get out and stretch during the long drive home was to locate a geocache at the rest stops that we had to go find and log.



Wal-Mart must be missing our business – we only stayed in one night in Wal-Mart the whole trip, boondocked 34 nights, 43 nights in RV parks, four nights outside friend’s homes, four nights in rest stops, and one night on the side of the road.

We are closing this year’s winter blog – with the hope that we will be able to catch up around the house, do a lot of camping soon, and plan a trip across the water in the fall.
Thanks to everyone who kept in touch with us on our adventure. We hope you enjoyed reading about this year’s trip.


~~Tony & Sharon