I'm titling this Blog...... Deliverance II
We got up early today as knew we had quite a drive to get to the Redwoods. We had breakfast, packed the ice chest with food and drinks, got Blaze and away we went. We started our drive at 7:00 AM, stopped to get some gas and we're off.....
We took CH 299 to 101 with Pat in his Jeff Gordon persona as the road was all up and down the mountains with nothing but switchbacks. What a ride! As it was early morning didn't have much traffic to deal with so going was good.
The first pic is an RV we saw parked in a small town we went through. Pat called this a Hippy Duplex.
We hit the 101 which runs along the California coast and then came upon a herd of elk in the water.
We started our Redwood trek at the Redwood National Park driving down to the Humboldt Redwoods State Park traveling the Avenue of the Giants.
We had to gas up again in Eureka, CA on the way to the Humboldt Redwoods State Park (they have the tree you can drive through in Humboldt). We have driven several hundreds of miles and seen many redwoods so about 1:00 pm started home on CH 36. CH36 is the windiest road in the state of California, windier than CH 299. It was named in a magazine as the best motorcycle road to take in California so of course Pat had to drive. With it being later in the day there is more traffic and with Pat back in his Jeff Gordon persona he feels the need to pass everyone possible. (this is a 2 lane road with many switchbacks but they do have some passing lanes (thank God).
They did have road construction on CH36 so we had to wait in line to get through a portion of the road. Pat just had to take a pic of the auto in front of us. We are captioning this .... If your ice chest is bigger than your truck you must be a red neck.....
Okay, here is where it gets good...... We are about 72 miles from home, we're at the intersection of CH3 and CH36 (The end of the earth) and the car just stops. I mean nothing, so we coast into the middle area between the 2 roads. Since we are at the end of the earth of course we have no phone reception. We hadn't been stopped for more than 5 minutes when a good samaritan stopped. We tried to jump the battery thinking perhaps the battery just died. Nope, that wasn't it, the car is dead, I mean D E A D. We use the guys phone to call Good Sam to get a tow but his phone reception is iffy and if you don't hold his phone in just the right way it doesn't work as it's partially broken. So after about 5 dropped calls with Good Sam getting in just portions of info each call another party stops to see if they can help.
In the mean time the good samaritan has taken off his shirt to get some rays while we are using his phone. Did I mention he's also bald? I'm looking at a lot of skin. His girlfriend calls and since he's in hot water with her (should of already been at her house) he leaves and then we use the Lady's (other person that stopped) phone to try and tie things up with Good Sam.
Now this Lady is older and we found out that her husband had been a judge in the area but he died about 4 years ago at the age of 86. I believe she was lonesome as we talked for close to our hour before she left. During that hour we learned about a murder that happened about a year ago not far from her home, how a friend of hers and her husband came upon the murderer after he had killed 2 persons and her friend got her throat cut, she lived but had to stay in the hospital for 14 days. Her husband had also been stabbed but didn't have to stay in the hospital. The murderer got away but later died in a car accident this year. This was just one of many stories. There was also one about her grandson and the Jonas brothers. I could go on and on. Anyway........... we finally received a call from the tow truck driver that he would be there in an hour and 20 minutes. Thank goodness the Lady hadn't left yet as they called on her phone.
So after the Lady left we sat there waiting for our ride. It was now close to 6:30 and cooling down. We sat in the car waiting for our tow truck. Before you know it we see him coming around a curve. This is one of the Tow trucks that has a flat bed for the car to be towed on so quite large. Blaze and I hop into the backseat of the tow waiting for the driver and Pat to get all the paperwork done and the car loaded. It's now about 7:15-7:30. Now this Tow truck was having problems going up and down the mountains so at times we are going 25 to 30 miles per hour. Now going down hill we travel close to 55-60. Now remember what I said about CH36, it's the windiest road in California and it's pitch black, and we're in a tow truck at the end of the earth. Life doesn't get much better......
As we have lots of time to chat we find out that we are in the area of California that grows the best pot (marijuana), that being Humboldt & Shasta Counties. Our tow truck driver has grown up in this area and used to be a logger. (we found out from the Lady that they shut down logging in this area years ago but are now starting to log again) He has a 2 daughters, one at home and one out of the house. He has 2 dogs and one is a poodle. I could go on and on........
We finally get back to Redding and the RV park at 9:30. We've been away from home for over 14 hours. The RV never looked so good. Needless to say that after we got the car off the tow and we settled in, I had a martini and then another. I think we finally got to bed about 11:00-11:30. What a Day!!!!
Now we only have 1 vehicle that has not been towed and I'm not in any hurry to go for a motorcycle ride. Sunday I'm staying at the RV park by the pool. I'm not taking any chances......
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