Wandering North

We are on the road again. We couldn’t wait until Monday morning to get out of town. After we finished packing up we left on Sunday afternoon around 3:30.

San Francisco

Vista point at north end of the Golden Gate

Sausalito and the Bay

A couple of hours of driving brought us to Petaluma. Petaluma is an interesting mix of farm country, old industrial and brick building, and quaint old historic homes. There are the ever-present modern strip malls, behind which we spent the night. Using an app called AllStay (a map of places to stay for Boondockers and truckers) we found a street behind a small shopping center we could park for the night. Seemed fine for just sleeping, until the Sonoma fairgrounds mini stock car races started up minutes after we setup. Turns out the track is less than a mile away. Zoom zoom for a few hours. If we weren’t tired we might have gone to checked out the races. Fortunately, being Sunday, the races didn’t run too late.

Then sometime just before dawn the delivery trucks arrived behind the grocery store. Bang bang clunk. Fortunately, we had gone to bed early. Not our best choice ever, yet we were comfy in our little camper.

We moved to a lovely little park in central Petaluma, had breakfast and took off on our bikes to sightsee around the historic downtown area.

It has been a long time since we explored a city, Pre-covid. I felt like a little kid in Disneyland or more likely a just released prisoner. Everything is interesting and exciting. I love street art and old and unusual architecture.

Petaluma Train Station: The Smart train takes passengers to San Rafael, Marin and Santa Rosa. The Art Center is a part of the train station.

And I love to take pictures of the local post office.

Downtown Petaluma

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We visited two locations on the California Cheese Trail. The first was an under-stocked store in Petaluma and not worth mentioning. The second was just outside of Santa Rosa, started with traditional recipes of a family that migrated to the area from Portugal in the 70’s. A true dairy, the cows along with the expected scenery and smells of a farm. They had a small little room where they sold two types of the same cheese, one aged 3 months and one 9 months. We were given samples of both and preferred the “picante” longer aged cheese.

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We made it to just above Leggett and stayed the night at a campground with hot water and showers! And quiet after our night in Petaluma.

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We are heading towards Eureka. How long will it take us to get there and who knows what lays beyond? It is wonderful to be on the road again.