Day 72 – It rained through the night. We never did take the walk to the ranger station yesterday afternoon; it was raining so hard that we didn’t want to go out & get soaking wet. This morning at 8 a.m. it was 55 degrees & cloudy, quite humid. A good day to change campgrounds, although we sure hate to do so.
67 miles
Van Duzen County Park Swimmers Delight, Swimmers Delight Park Drive, Carlotta, CA 95528 (12 miles east of Highway 101 on Route 36), (707) 455-7651, http://www.humboldtgov.org/Facilities/Facility/Details/Van-Duzen-Pamplin-Grove-16. Off-season, they are not strict about check-in & check-out times; website says 7-night maximum stay – the sign in the campground says 10-night maximum stay. This place was a wonderful surprise. A small Park with 30 campsites, they are nestled within an old-growth redwood forest on the Van Duzen River. There are several sites that have water & electric hook-ups, no sewer & no dump station. The rest of the campsites are dry camping. At least three of the sites are quite large, two of them being right on the River but no hook-ups at them. We selected site #8 with hook-ups; it was just big enough to get our RV in with the car behind us, sideways. We stayed a week – a perfect week. We wouldn’t have left then if we didn’t have to dump. Huge, beautiful trees & a rushing river. There were almost no people camping during our entire week. Evidently though, it gets quite crowded during the summer. Everything was immaculate & the ranger/campground host was one of the nicest people we’ve encountered. Customer service an “A++”, even offering us money off our rate to compensate for our previous campground’s bad electrical connection. Very little noise from anything other than the rain and/or the River. Most campsites were dark due to being so deep into the forest; this did not bother us. A 5-star experience all the way, and at this point in the trip, our favorite campground. $25 per night for dry camping; $35 per night for electrical & water hook-ups, minus $3 per night senior discount.
We left Van Duzen at 11:05 a.m., 57 degrees & partly cloudy. Before hooking the Honda up to the RV, we each walked down to the River. Did you ever have a moment in time that you just wanted to stay in forever? I felt like crying, but it was mixed with joy. Sad to leave such a beautiful, peaceful place. Happy to have had the experience.
We drove west on Route 36 to Highway 101 & the weirdest thing happened. In those 10 to 15 minutes, the temperature rose 21 degrees & warm winds came through. It stayed this way for 20 minutes, then suddenly the temperature dropped back down to the upper 50’s & it was cloudy. I had a signal so I looked online because there’d been nothing in the weather forecast indicating any change, let alone anything so drastic. Was that a nuclear explosion? Is there a forest fire nearby? All that was posted was that by 10 a.m. Eureka had broken an 87-year old record for a high on this day. Guess a front was coming through, but it was very dramatic.
We drove on Highway 101 south through the redwood forests & by a couple of State Parks. We reached our campground at 12:35 p.m., 67 degrees & partly cloudy. Stopping in the office, we were given three sites to choose from. We picked site #17, a pull-thru site with full hook-ups. The sites were fairly close together, but there was no one camping around us. The campground accepted Passport America & we saved 50%, paying only $20 per night for full hook-ups. The owners/hosts were very nice.
Richardson Grove Campground, Garberville, CA
Site 17, Richardson Grove Campground, Garberville, CA
Site 17, Richardson Grove Campground, Garberville, CA
We set up & had lunch. Rob dumped the tanks; we’re starting off fresh again. We noticed that several RV’s & campers were lined up at the office. Uh-oh, here comes the neighbors. The office was temporarily closed so the vehicles began the process of self-check in. One trailer parked right in front of us. Goody. We watched them set up only a few feet from us; they’d obviously done this before & were quite adept in the process. The other RV found itself a place to park in a different section of the Park. We decided to get some laundry done, but the laundry facilities were in use. No internet & a limited phone connection, we read our brochures to do some research about where to go next. Laundry facilities still being used, we decided to find a health food store & get a little grocery shopping done.
North of us we found a store in a happy little hippie town, Garberville (where it seemed like all the hippies went when they got older, and where they had the equally-happy, fabulous natural foods store, Chautaupua Natural Foods). A bustling, well-stocked store, we felt right at home, we got our supplies, & headed back towards the campground. We went through the charming city of Benbow, with its homes on the hill overlooking the Eel River. This would be a nice area to live in. It was getting dark, so we settled in for the night. Tomorrow we’ll get that laundry done & take a drive to scout out future campgrounds.