10/11–10/14/12–Eureka to Petaluma to Fresno, CA

We left Eureka on October 11th continuing south on Hwy 101 through the Redwoods and past the variety of tourists stores along the way.

We found a pullout along the highway prior to the city of Willits and stopped for our lunch break and then continued on south.  It wasn’t long before all traffic was stopped and we had to take a detour to avoid a bad accident on the 101.  We later found out it was a one vehicle accident with a pole and power lines were across the road and that the road wasn’t opened again until after 9pm that evening.  It was a narrow country road that we took for the detour, but we were glad we didn’t need to sit there for hours.

The detour eventually took us into Willits which is the home of the The Skunk Train.  That’s something we may have to look into on another trip.

Back in Willits, we once again were heading south on Hwy 101 and judging by the long lineup of traffic, we were glad not have already made it through the detour and not headed north.

And here we’re getting closer to Petaluma where the Elks lodge was our destination for the night.

We left Petaluma on 10/12/12 and drove west and then south to Fresno.

A sign at a raceway that Ken wanted to get to in his younger years.

Several of the roads we took were toll roads where there was no toll for our direction of travel.

A mass transit train parked alongside the road.

When we got to the Fresno Elks, we found out we should have been reservations as they were full.  Fortunately they had a place where we could boondock and that worked out very well for the three nights we were there.

10/13/12:  We had a couple of visits to make while in Fresno.  Our hunting partners for several years, George (Doc) and Sharon live north of Fresno.  It’s probably been 5 years or more since we had seen them.  We’ve been through the area 3-4 times the last few years, but it always seemed to work out that they were traveling and unavailable.  This time it worked out well and we had a very enjoyable visit and meal with them.

Doc, Ken and Sharon.

10/14/12: And the second reason for our visit was to see Jan’s brother Dean who lives here.  We visited with him the next day and we actually talked him into taking us out to dinner…usually, it’s the other way around.

We returned to the RV to get ready for our travels the next day and to relax a bit.