Hal Wine
> 
> Hi!  How was the trip?  How long did you stay?  Did Sara enjoy it?
> 
> Detail, gimme details! :-)
> 
> --Hal
> Hal Wine <hal@dtor.com>     voice: 510/482-0597

Things went well -- we drove straight up to Fortuna (just south of 
Eureka) the first day -- about 5 hours -- quicker than I thought.  
Got a room in a "Super 8" motel that was desperate for business.  Had 
a poor dinner at a seafood restaurant.  Tried to get ARA going on the 
power book, and couldn't. The next morning we had breakfast at 
Denny's, which was pretty good.  After a while our waitress started 
to look familiar, and I thought about where on earth I had seen her 
before.  Finally I figured out that she used to ride the bus when I 
was going to school in Willits -- her name was Marlene Snodgras.  It 
was clear that she didn't recognize me, so after a while I asked her
if Hearst Rd, Willits, meant anything to her.  So we chatted a bit -- 
she was embarassed to be working at "Lenny's".

After we left CF pointed out that I could have been married to 
Marlene, and it was very thought provoking that I was actually in the 
same age group as the late middle-aged woman who had waited on our 
table.  Indeed, it was thought provoking.

From there we drove to Ferndale -- a small town so full of carefully 
restored Victorian buildings that the whole town is a national 
historical landmark.  Some of them were really exquisite.  Then we 
continued on to Cape Mendocino, and meandered the back roads down 
along the coast until we turned inland to Garberville.  Down 101 to 
Leggett, then caught 1 to Westport on the coast again.

Highway 1 between Leggett and Westport is very windy, but I was 
driving the van very slowly, and nobody had any problems.

A little inland from Westport on 1 there is a turnoff on a dirt road
that goes North to Usal beach.  One of my great aunts used to live out
there, many many years ago.  That dirt road continues up to Shelter
Cove, and there are other dirt roads in that wilderness that I would
love to explore sometime. 

We meandered down the coast to Fort Bragg, where we got another cheap 
motel room.  Sara was fussy, so I went out and got some fast food at 
Burger King -- Both CF and I were impressed with the BK food, BTW -- 
substantially better than JITB or McDonalds.

Next morning we cruised down to Pt Arena, and had a nice breakfast in 
a combo coffee shop and bookstore called "Bookends", I think.  Then 
we called my Aunt Jean Piper, and then drove to her place.

Aunt Jean's place is on the Mountain View road, halfway between Pt 
Arena and Boonvile.  When I was a very small child I lived there.  I 
discovered that the homestead loomed larger in my memories than in 
real life.  It was dry and dusty, and the buildings were faded and 
out of true.

Aunt Jean told me a story about a trip on the dirt roads north of 
Usal that she, Aunt Norma and Uncle Lew made not long before Norma 
and Lew died -- they were both sick on the trip.  Norma had cancer, 
and Lew had emphysema.  Anyway, they were in a station wagon, and the 
water pump gave out.  They ended up spending the night -- they built 
a big fire in the middle of the road to keep warm.  Jean said Norma 
and Lew both really enjoyed the trip, because their illness kept them 
from much adventure...

After a couple of hours visiting with Jean we headed back to the 
coast, down 1 to Gualala to visit my other old aunt, Kay.  She and 
her husband Londo live in a very nice little home back from the coast 
a few miles.

Unfortunately, from Pt Arena south the coast was fogged in -- the 
drive to that point had been just beautiful and sunny.  But the 
temperature was 25 degrees cooler, and the sun was gone, when we 
drove up to Kay and Londo's place.

But Kay had just finished baking an apple pie -- Kay is famous for 
her pies, and of  course we had to have some.  We sat and talked for 
a while over pie and coffee.  Londo has one of the original Toyota 
Land Cruisers, which has run like a top for 20 years.  However, the 
body has serious rust problems -- early toyotas apparently were 
infamous for not handling rust very well.  I told him I had just 
purchased a 4runner, and he was excited about that. He told me that 
this was the worst year for deer hunting in his memory -- he blamed 
it on either 1) too much brush (need a good burn) 2) not enough 
logging (those deer love freshly logged land), or 3) too many varmits 
(lots of mountain lions these days).  He's a bit cantankerous, but he 
was really impressed with Christina and Sara, I could tell.

Originally we were going to spend the night in a motel in Gualala, but
we noticed that we could be home in three hours, so we decided to run
for it, down 1 to Bodega Bay, then inland to Petaluma.  It was just
getting dark as we got to the bad part of 1, I was tired, we were low
on gas, and Sara was whimpering in the back.  It was a stressful 
drive to Petaluma.

-- 
Kent Crispin			"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com		the thief he kindly spoke...
kb6rca
