While I'm writing this from my truck camper at the Napa County Fairgrounds RV Campground in Calistoga, yesterday was *D-Day* -- as in Departure (or Driving).
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Drove back to ham Jim Tripp's spread south of Castroville and had him measure the clearance needed to avoid hitting the air conditioning shroud on top of the camper: 11 feet. But, like the cat Mark Twain describes which, after sitting on a hot stove, would never sit a stove, hot or cold, again, I think I'll require a clearance of 11' 6" before I try to drive my rig under a gas station roof or awning, low-hanging limbs at an RV campground [CG], or RR under-crossing.
Once burned, this cat has learned an expensive ($6000) lesson!
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The drive from Castroville north to the Martinez/Benicia Bridge on I-680 was non-eventful, though there was more traffic than I expected during the early afternoon; glad I missed the commute traffic later.
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But once I turned off of I-80W and headed for Napa, the country side became more interesting. Had never previously been there; the drive reminded me of the drive from Petaluma to Bodega, a route I take to get to SR1 when heading north to Fort Bragg. And like Bodega Road, SR29 to Napa is 2-lane with no places to pass [besides which I ain't gonna be passing many other vehicles on 2-lane roads -- except perhaps a horse-drawn hay wagon].
Filled the gas tank at the first station I came to since the speedometer message board was nagging me with a "low fuel level" warning. Even though I don't think one can get the last 1.5 gallons out of my Ford F-250 35 gallon tank, I knew it would take a while to fill so I stepped inside the camper, re-adjusted my clothes, & put on my belt. (Yes, I know some of the young-uns like to have their pants hanging at half mast, but that's not my style.)
Cost $101.07 fill my tank at $3.07/gal; had intended to fill at $3.15/gal at the Castroville Valero, but they had jacked up their prices 60 $3.19[to gouge Thanksgiving travelers according to Jim].
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The drive to St Helena was even more relaxing, though I had to keep my eyes on the road since many winery workers were getting off work and heading home. But it's clear what the big biz is here: vino!
Couldn't find the library in Napa; everybody seemed to be at the Wal-Mart where I thought I might ask a greeter if he/she knew where the library was located. But as I stopped at a light on a 4 or 6-lane road, the fellow next to me tried to tell me something. Released my seat belt, leaned way over, & rolled down the window. He said my gas-cap was hanging out. Thanked him and as I rolled the window back up he shouted, "Bet you wish you had automatic windows." Just nodded and smiled, but if the truth were known, I prefer roll-up windows to the battery-operated type. The reason: I've been able to repair all window problems myself -- until I had a window problem with my previous vehicle, an 87 Mazda; it cost me $70 to have the window rolled up when lifting mechanism conked out.
Made an illegal left turn across an empty left turn lane & put the gas cap back.
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Continued north to St Helena, which, like Napa, reminded me of Carmel: lots of shops and botiques selling merchandise in older buildings which had been renovated.
Saw a sign to the Library and was pleasantly surprised to find a very new building next to a Robert Louis Stevenson memorial. If memory serves, author Stevenson, who did spend time in Monterey, had a home in or near St Helena. While the RLS portion was closed, suspect there may be something on-line about it.
Used the library WiFi to contact my cousin Burt; we'll meet for lunch today at Beulah's in Middletown, which I'm guessing is so named because it's roughly half-way 'tween Calistoga and and Clear Lake.
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After arriving at the Napa County Fairgrounds CG, I read the info on the bulletin and chose a partial hook-up ($30) instead of a full hookup ($33); a partial hook-up includes water and a 30-amp plug-in for electricity; a full hook-up has a sewer connection.
Chose this CG because the Trailer Life CG Directory said it had WiFi, but the WiFi was intermittent -- perhaps beause of the rain. So, if I'm unable to post this from here, will do so later at the Calistoga Library, which is at 1108 Myrtle Street.
[Will see if I can change this using HTML tags to make it easier to read; for starters, the paragraphs should be indented or separated from each other with blank lines.]
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