I had a fabulous drive up the coast the weekend before last with
incredible weather...sunny and windless.
We (Sam in his Boxter and me in the MGA) drove from Mill Valley to
Gualala up the coast having lunch in Duncan Mills at Cape Fear. We
stayed at St Orrs and got a great deal on a 2 bedroom cottage
midweek. (food was good but a bit overpriced I thought).
The next day we drove on up to Point Arena and had maximum visibility
from the top of the lighthouse, and then had an interesting drive over
the mountains to Boonville.
Interesting because of the amount of fine gravel that was washing out
of the hills. At one point we had to pull over because Sam had gravel
making fearsome sounds after lodging in the front disc brake of his
Boxter....not a problem in my low tech drums. He managed to dislodge
it after some energetic backing up.
Most of the route was accompanied by the sound of fine grit bouncing
off our paintwork....not recommended for those of you worried about a
bit of wear-and-tear.
From time to time the views were spectacular as we were looking out
across the Californian equivalent of a mini alpine landscape. Highly
recommended route for those that enjoy windy, gravelly, damp roads.
It was honestly no worse than some of the roads on the north side of
Mount Tam.....just longer.
We had a simple but tasty lunch in Boonville, and motored on to Ukiah
for an extraordinarily good supper at Petrona which was enhanced by a
bottle of Hallcrest 2005 Pinot Noir Upper Block that I brought with
me...great stuff. (I also packed half a case of oil but we thought
better of adding it to the meal. However the MGA had a reasonable
appetite for it!)
The next couple of days we attended a workshop at Frey vineyards, and
then Sam sped home down 101, while I got happily lost in the mountains
east of Ukiah with snow on the roadsides, and finally found my way
through the eastern winecountry back to Mill Valley.
For those of you interested in views from Point Arena Lighthouse log
on to
http://galleries.markdarleyphoto.com/PtArenaRoadTrip/
The rest of the time I was too busy driving to take photos!
Cheers
Mark
Mark Darley
markdarley@mac.com
415 381 5452
On Jan 17, 2011, at 6:53 PM, Greg Tatarian wrote:
> Dan,
>
> Mendocino is about the distance I had in mind, myself, and is one of
> the destinations I was considering.
>
> Let's see what other input we get.
>
> Cheers,
> Greg
>
>
>
>
> On 1/17/2011 4:58 PM, Daniel Drummond wrote:
>> Greg,
>>
>> I like the idea of an overnighter. How does Mendocino sound as a
>> destination? Too far? Not far enough? Most of the people in the
>> group I see maybe once a month, and then most of the time either on
>> the road in front of me or in the rearview mirror. An overnighter
>> would afford a great opportunity to get to know everyone a bit
>> better, much like the tech session/BBQ at your place last summer.
>> Count me in. I'll be happy to help organize it if there's enough
>> interest in doing it.
>>
>> Dan
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