April 7th we drove over to US101 and up to Thousand Trails Morgan Hill for five nights. It was a long day for us at 199 miles. If we were James Dean fans we would have stopped and paid our respects. The campground was a bit wet from the rains, but there were plenty of open sites and our neighbors told us which ones didn't flood. Of course it did start raining during camp setup. We didn't feel like cooking so we went into Gilroy and had dinner at Johnny Carinos.
Here is our campsite the next morning when it wasn't raining:
Yes there is some water in front and we didn't go all the way back in the campsite, but it really was quite solid.
Here we are on the 9th with the bikes on the back of the motorhome.
There were wild turkeys both inside the campground and across a cyclone fence:
Evita was watching this one (the picture is a bit grainy since the light was low):
We did do some touring, but didn't take any useful pictures. One day we went to Casa de Fruita, but their prices had gone up so we didn't buy anything. We drove into Monterey on the only really nice day, a Saturday and it was very busy so we didn't stop. Another day we drove up to Saratoga and down into Big Basin State Park, but it started to rain as we came into the park. We came back to the campground via Santa Cruz, but it rained much of the way.
CA152 was closed up the hill from the campground, which was a disappointment since it is the fast route to the ocean and the view is nice at the top. On a whim we drove up and found the road was closed just over the top of Hecker Pass, so we stopped for the view out towards the Pacific Ocean to the west. We didn't bring the new camera so these are shots with our old Canon G1:
We ended up helping two groups with directions who were trying to drive CA152 and must not have been able to read warning signs. One group was two Japanese trying to get to Los Angeles, which is understandable, but the other group was some young women who should have known better.
We found an excellent restaurant in Gilroy to celebrate Diane's birthday, the prices are more like Applebee's than the high end the place was. The restaurant is called Harvest Time.
We did try various garlic foods being in the "Garlic Capital" and bought one salad dressing. Unfortunately the stores had little out for tasting. Gilroy had a Costco and Camping World was nearby so we were happy.
On April 12th we drove north to the Sacramento Delta and had to deal with mud and getting towed out, here are our adventures in the Delta, they deserve their own webpage.
April 14th we drove 165 miles to Clear Lake State Park in Kelseyville, CA. We were too long for the campground and knew to camp in the boat ramp parking lot. There were no hookups. Diane's parents came in about 15 minutes later and camped next to us. We had independently planned to be in Kelseyville at the same time and Diane's sister, Kimberly, who we were here to visit realized we were coming at the same time. Here are our two motorhomes camped in the parking lot:
We last visited this area in September 2004.
It was cold and wet for two days, we had to run the generator a lot to recharge the batteries from the drain the furnace fan put on them. Then the weather was sunny and our solar panels helped, plus the furnace wasn't using so much electricity. We stayed a total of five nights.
The first night we tried to go eat at a Mexican restaurant, but they had a private party so we tried a place Kimberly and her husband Dennis knew the owner. Anthony's Italian in Lakeport was a good place to eat.
We had a really good visit both with Kimberly and Dennis, and also with Gregg and Rosalie. Bill didn't take any pictures.
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