Coast to Mountains

The next morning, we left the coast and started heading inland towards Santa Rosa, CA. We stopped at a coffee shop that lacked the required seating, wifi, and wall plugs, then kept going to the next small town. This one fortunately had a coffee shop with seating and wifi, so we shared a coffee while I took a meeting for work in the van where I could plug in. While I was in my meeting, I was oblivious to all outside events. Apparently, the owner came out and talked to Faith several times with a disposition somewhere between irritated and angry with us for taking up her seating (nobody else was sitting at the shop) and splitting a coffee. So, once my meeting was over, we immediately left and drove into Santa Rosa. Faith had a gift card she wanted to use, so I dropped her off at the mall and found some adjacent shaded parking where I could get some work done with the best cellular service in a while and no angry business owners. After she got back, we hit In-n-Out to get a burger and shakes. We couldn’t find ice cream for less than $8 per pint on the way down the coast, so shakes for a couple bucks was a welcome change and satisfied our ice cream cravings. Dan, the family friend that we met up with at Lake Tahoe, has family in Santa Rosa and told them we might come by. We had contacted them, and they graciously offered us a place to sleep, do some laundry, and take a shower. So, once we had finished our shakes, we drove over to Scott and Jennifer’s to get to know them.

They have a beautiful house in the hills just above Santa Rosa that was barely spared a few years ago by a forest fire that burned down the houses of many of their neighbors. Upon arrival, we introduced ourselves and began to engage in many hours of conversation that carried us through a lovely homemade dinner and into the evening. We got to meet Michelle and Jay, their daughter and grandson. Currently, Scott and Jennifer are remodeling their kitchen and offered their 9 year-old grandson the opportunity to draw on the floor with permanent marker. He had taken to it with gusto and gave us a tour of his many artworks which are displayed in the images below. As night came, we slept soundly in our first proper bed in a while. Additionally, we got to take our first shower in nearly a week. It was glorious, and I made sure to get a second shower in before we left as I knew it was going to be a while before we had the opportunity again.

The next morning was Saturday, and there was a farmer’s market going on just a couple miles down the way. We got up, chatted with our hosts, finished our laundry, filled our water bottles, then bid farewell and went down to the farmer’s market. There, we found the normal variety of fruits, vegetables, wines, flowers, and various other odds and ends. We also found something very surprising: mulberries. Apparently, mulberries are a super food of sorts and worth $8 for a poorly-filled pint. This was both shocking and hilarious to me, as my family treats them like weeds and would rather have most any other berry. After the farmer’s market, we got going towards Yosemite via a circuitous route through San Francisco to see the Golden Gate Bridge. We drove down Highway 101 towards the bay and got to see the beautiful bridge for just a minute or two as we crossed it. We didn’t stop for photos or anything as the bridge was far less impressive than we expected. For whatever reason, we were anticipating a bridge that was much larger and longer than the real one actually is. We drove a long route through San Francisco but didn’t stop anywhere. We took another bridge across the bay through Oakland and into the central valley. After driving through the coast and its windy roads, the central valley was a relief: perfectly flat and straight roads as far as the eye could see. As an Iowa boy, I’m used to seeing either corn or soybeans filling the fields on either side. The central valley of California is very different: orchards and fields of a variety trees and plants presented themselves and changed at seemingly every mile. We stopped in Modesto at Costco and Trader Joe’s to get groceries and lunch. The day was very hot, in the upper 90s, but nothing compared to the forecast: 110s for the central valley. We didn’t want to be anywhere near for that, so we got going up into the mountains to a lake recommended to us, Bass Lake, where we could cool off and stay the night. We wound our way up into the Sierra Nevada mountains and arrived at the lake just in time to capture one of the last parking spots around the lake. We spent the next several hours swimming, hanging out in the sun, and generally enjoying the evening. As night came, we drove up the road a bit and found a pull off that was rapidly infested by mosquitoes once the sun went down. We barely were able to get dinner made without getting eaten alive. We didn’t bother to wash dishes, we just tossed everything back into the car and sealed it up tight against those little bloodsuckers.

Animals Seen

• Crows
• No dead fish, thankfully

Stats

• ~300 miles of driving
• 2 showers!!!
• 1 swim at the lake