Big 300 mile move and Seafood in Santa Rosa

Thursday - Friday:  October 04 -05, 2012 

Thursday October 04:

WARNING!! I didn't have much excitement to talk about so I wrote a little about our RV leaving procedure to start off.  Please skip down for travel journal stuff if you prefer.

We were up at our usual 7 am in Klamath and the area was completely fogged in.  We started our “get out of town” moving routine just the same though.  I do the outside stuff while Patty does the inside.  I start by turning on the tire pressure monitoring system in the truck.  It takes up to 5 minutes for the system to get pressures from all of the 10 tires.  I do this so I’m not surprised by a low tire at leaving time.  That was a lesson learned from Salt Lake City. Then I start the tank dumping with the cleaning of the black tank.  While that is happening, I put away the chairs, the grille, our plant, and roll back the cover on the truck bed. At this time I get out my foot stool from the truck bed so I can reach the hitch lever when its time to leave.  I now have the truck bed gate down for the later hitching procedure.  Then I dump the grey tanks (we have 2 of these).   Next I turn off the water and put away the hose.  By this time I should hear Patty putting the slides in.  Once the slides are in, I turn off the power at the pole and then put away the cable.  This is my least favorite thing to do.  The cable is heavy and stiff and usually wet and dirty.  So I start the cable storing process by stretching it out and wiping it down as I roll in back into its plastic box.  This is the time Patty comes around to see how I’m doing, meaning she is done. 

Now we are ready to hitch the truck to the RV.  We have a hydraulic leveling system, so everything is done from the control pad at the front of the rig.  I start by retracting the rear 4 jacks.  After the rear jacks are raised, I eye ball the height of the RV hitch pin with the truck hitch and then raise or lower the RV to match.  Next, I back the truck up and with Patty guiding me, we try to get the bed hitch aligned with the RV pin.  If the alignment is good and the RV pin is at the right height, I slowly back in until the pin is secured to the truck hitch.  I get out and use the foot stool (I’m too short to reach the hitch lever) to put the safety latch and pin on with the safety cable.  At the same time, Patty attaches the RV to Truck cable.

Next we get the truck and RV combination ready to travel.  I retract the front landing gear to just a couple of inches from the ground.  Now all of the RV weight is on the truck.  I get back in the truck to do a pull test.  Patty walks back to the RV wheels where the chocks are and watches as I try to pull the RV with the RV brakes on.   After a good pull test, she then takes out the chocks and stores them while I now fully retract the front landing gear.  We check the rear RV lights, do a walk around looking under and on top and now we are ready to go.   The whole process takes us about an hour.

OK, Now back to the travel journal part.

Today we are going a long distance for us at 300 miles to Santa Rosa CA.  Just a note about moving the RV; there are 2 times when I am the most nervous.  The first being when we first move the rig from the camp ground and it continues until we are on the highway.  The next is when we pull off the highway to find he next camp ground.  I am afraid that we will get ourselves into a position we can’t get out of trying to find the campground.  So far, we have not really had any issues we couldn't get out of.

The trip to Santa Rosa was really uneventful.  It is very dry here in the California interior.  We saw a few places where there had been grass fires.  Also saw many, many rivers that were just not rivers any more.  There were lots of big bridges with just a small trickle of water under them.

Very dry river.

Road side tourist shop.

More big trees.

Another dry river.

There are only a couple of reasonable sized towns between Klamath and Santa Rosa, Eureka and Willits. Willits is where we decided to fill up on fuel at $4.45, cheapest so far in California.  Willits is about 100 miles north of Santa Rosa.

Napa Valley vineyards along route 101.

We arrived at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa around 3:30 pm.  As usual, I was just a little on edge until we find the campground.  Santa Rosa is a big city with lots of ways to make a wrong turn.  Of course, the Garmin took us to the fairgrounds entrance which was not the entrance to the RV Park.  Unlike in a car, we have no place to pull over to research the exact spot for the RV Park.  We then spot a really small 8x10 sign on the left side of the 3 lane road we are on that has an arrow and says “RV PARK”.  Holy Crap, we need to watch for these small randomly placed signs on the wrong side of the road to find our way!  The RV Park was on the back side of the fairgrounds off a fairly small street. We made it, Whew!

New lesson:  Check the exact location of the RV Park before leaving.

This is our exit from route 101.

The RV Park is just a gravel parking lot with full hook ups.  The good thing is it is within walking distance to the Sonoma County Harvest Festival at the fairgrounds. Over the weekend the festival is host to 150 wineries with a wine tasting event!  Also, the cost at the RV Park is just $61 with tax for 3 nights using our Passport America membership!  The spaces are level and not as close as some we have had.  The park is only maybe half full so there is lots of room.

This is the Sonoma County Fairgrounds RV Park.

 

Our Site.  Not Bad.

What we came for.

Landscape view from the fairgrounds

 Friday October 05, 2012

We were going to go to the wine tasting today.  However, we found out at the gate that only the "elite" were doing the tasting this evening.  We could get in with $70 each and we would need to dress up some.  We will wait till tomorrow, Saturday, to attend the $15 event.  The event for $15 gets you a glass and 4 tickets for tasting.  We can get increments of 4 more tasting tickets for $10. 

So we decided to walk back to our RV and have our own wine tasting with our own wine J  We found a highly recommended local seafood store about 6 blocks away.  We picked up local king salmon and a local halibut for dinner.  I grilled both fish with Patty’s halibut being on aluminum foil and topped with a Ritz cracker and butter crumb topping.  My salmon was the best salmon I have EVER eaten.  The salmon literally melted in my mouth, no chewing needed!  The taste was perfect salmon.  What more can I say.  Patty’s was good, but I over cooked it so it was dry.

Where got the best Salmon, ever!

 Tomorrow we do the wine tasting.

Stay tuned!