9/15/2017 - Heading Inland

Friday - Our active day yesterday had the leftover effect of leaving us very tired today.  And achy.  Legs and backs are stiff.  But we had to vacate our campsite so we headed out across Hwy 20.  We were on the road about 9:45, 50 degrees when I got up.  We drove Hwy 20 across the mountain range -- it was barely better than driving Hwy 1 a few days earlier.  It too was curvy, mountainous,, but the curves were not quite as sharp.  Another 20 mph drive.  It took over an hour to make it the 33 miles to Willits, which is the home of racehorse Sea Biscuit, and where he is buried.  But we didn't see that ranch, and we had not really planned on stopping.  (our road is the orange line)

We stopped at a truck stop about noon at Upper Lake, walked around a little, had some lunch, took a little break there.  Then we continued on our way east.  We drove past pretty Clear Lake for miles, a scenic drive through there, but most of it was only 45 mph because there are little communities all along this side of the lake.

 Then we finally started getting into flat land and the agriculture area.  Lots of grapes grown in this area, and we saw some olive trees and other nut trees but we didn't know what kind.  We saw fields of sunflowers that looked past their prime.  Don't know when or how they harvest the seeds but they looked ready to us.  Fields of tomatoes, not staked, which is unusual.  Maybe some potatoes, some hay.

At our noon stop, we started working on a place to stay tonight.  We are heading to the Camping World store just outside of Sacrament in Rocklin, and Joe found a campground in Loomis which looked pretty close.  Of course, no one answered the phone, so the second time he tried, he left a message.  Back on the road, I called an hour later and got "Tammy."  She thought she might have one spot but the guy had not vacated it yet so she was going to check into that.  She worked with us the rest of the afternoon, finally told us to call back about 4:00.  We came into Yuba City about 3:00 so we pulled into a Walmart parking lot, which unfortunately was posted No Overnight Parking (or we would have just stayed there), and laid down for a few minutes, then Tammy called back and said she had a cancellation so she could put us in a different spot.  She really worked hard to accommodate us.  We got there at 5:00, got hooked up, and were in for the night.

The Camping World store happens to be at the same exit, so we got lucky there.  We talked about driving over there after we gotset up but we really were too tired for shopping, and then Joe checked and found out they closed at 6:00, so that will be tomorrow's agenda. 

We are in this campground for 5 nights, so we have some time to explore Sacramento before we head to Grass Valley on Wednesday for the  horse show next weekend (starts Thursday).  And Joe will probably do some maintenance here.  He wants an haust pipe for the generator so when we are dry-camped at the horse show, our exhaust fumes won't fog out our neighbors when we have to use the generator.  Something we have probably needed for years.  But that's why we are going to Camping World.

Our weather is supposed to be in the 80s here, and there is a swimming pool at this campground, so we might take advantage of that.  The problem with California is -- when you are at the beach, it is too cold to get wet, and when you are inland in hot weather, you don't have the beach.  Since we didn't bring our wetsuits, we never went out into the Pacific beyond getting our feet wet (except for some sneaker waves that got Joe).  But we are done with the beach, and on to different things now.  And moving toward home. Slowly.