Day 82 – We slept very well last night; it helped to have made a decision (and to see that the temperature in the house was up to 50 degrees this morning). This morning at the campground, 38 degrees once again, 7:30 a.m.
We needed to find a post office to mail our signed contract to the energy company. After an early lunch, we went east to Philo. Found the Post Office, then decided to drive a little more to get pictures of this area. Our campground is in Hendy Woods State Park, part of the coastal redwood forest between the Pacific Ocean and the Anderson Valley. The valley is surrounded by rolling hills, and is very green and fertile with many vineyards, most of them offering wine tastings. Mixed in with the grapes are apple and pear orchards. The towns are small, there are a few inns, (probably mostly frequented by the wine tasters), and several highly-recommended restaurants. You can take small, winding roads up into the hills. There are some ranches with cows and/or sheep. The hills near the redwood forests have a mix of expensive homes at the end of long driveways, and some log-cabin-like, older places that look like they’ve been there awhile. I was curious about prices for real estate here, thinking that since it’s kinda “out there” and far from the more populated areas, it would be cheap. Hardly. A one bedroom, one bath cottage in the hills on less than two acres went for over $700K in 2015. It would be cool to have acres in the redwoods to park the RV at – you know, a place in the east & one in the west to travel back & forth to seasonally? Obviously, that won’t be happening here, LOL.
Anyway, enough describing the area! We drove on several small roads. We found a Regional Park that had hiking trails & almost parked there to walk, but remembered we have several great trails at our campground yet to be explored. (We realized recently that we were spending so much time exploring all the areas around our campgrounds, we hadn’t been taking advantage of the hiking, biking, & kayaking right there where we were staying.)
The scenery here is stunning & we were looking for a spot where we could take a picture looking down on the Valley. Most of the time there were too many trees to get the picture we were looking for. Back in Anderson Valley, driving through the orchards & vineyards, we could just imagine what it’s like here in the spring when all the trees & bushes are flowering. Now with the colder temperatures, most of the leaves had fallen off the vines. We did notice though, that each type of grape had different-colored leaves. You could almost tell which was a grape for red wine and which was for white wine.
We stopped at Lula Cellars where we’d done the wine tasting last Monday. We’d been offered a really good deal but had opted to buy just one bottle & test it later, rather than when we’d already tasted quite a bit. We tested it when completely sober Wednesday night; we like it a lot, and went back to take advantage of the deal. While waiting to speak with the gentleman who helped us on Monday, we walked around the pond at the winery, Rob with trusty camera in hand. There were two adult Coots and a mystery duck in the pond – we’d been told it was a juvenile Coot. We got pictures and from the best we can tell, this is not a juvenile Coot but a female or juvenile Hooded Merganser, hanging out with the Coots. Also, we startled a Great Blue Heron out of the reeds and it flew to the other side.
After purchasing our wine & finding a place for it in the RV amidst our other liquor, ho ho, we went for a walk on the Little Hendy Trail. This went downhill from the campground through the woods. When it leveled out, we were in a wonderful redwood grove next to an orchard of fruit trees. Unfortunately, we had to go back uphill to get back to the campground, pant pant, but it was a great trail.
There is still no one other than us (and the campground hosts) camping here. So quiet & private and we love it. We split one of our new bottles of wine and relaxed with the kitties. Tomorrow we hope to do some bike riding around here and hike another trail. The high today was 58 degrees, mostly sunny when you aren’t buried in the trees.