Two Miles and Four Feet from Home: Petaluma Bound

We had another great sleep as the temperatures dropped down to 52. We were going to be traveling north to a KOA in Petaluma which is about 40 miles north of San Francisco. It was supposed to be a top rated campground and even better it was only about 2.5 hours away. We could follow highway 1 most of the way up and actually drive across the Golden Gate Bridge! I love going across that bridge and the idea of going across with Lyn, Jasper and the camper in tow had a special appeal to me. When Lyn was growing up in the Philippines one year at school she was giving a notebook that had the Golden Gate bridge on the cover of it and she said she was fascinated with it and never dreamed she would see it in person. Anyway we made our way up the coast and stopped at a few overlooks along the way. Finally as we neared San Francisco the traffic got busier as we started going through the outlying neighborhoods of San Francisco. After about 20 minutes Lyn caught a small glimpse of the Gold Gate bridge! We both got excited and Jasper just laid in the back of the car snoring. It would be another 20 minutes before we saw it again but this time we were about to head over it and you could see it in all of its glory. We woke Jasper up so he would not miss it and Lyn took pictures and video the whole way. It really is something to see! After we crossed it there is a turn out little park where you can look back at the bridge and the city. We turned in and dropped Lyn off to take pictures as I went to try to find a place to park. Luckily I found two spaces and somehow manged to park with the trailer and not stick out into the road. So I went up and just viewed everything and took a few pictures myself. Jasper happens to be super photogenic so I was even able to get one with him with the bridge in the background. Finally it was time to go and we headed back out. Our GPS said to take Highway 101 but I insisted on taking Highway 1. We went for miles with the GPS telling us to turn around and finally I fixed the problem by turning the GPS off. :) Anyway we kept going and the road went up and down and around curves. It was beautiful all the way. As we went we noticed there were less and less cars but there was still one in front of us so we stuck with them. Finally we climbed a big hill and there was a sign blocking the road that said there had been a land slide ahead and we could go no further. We looked to our left to see if we could turn around and saw a turn in to a small park called the Muir Beach Overlook. We turned into the drive and up a small hill and boom we were on top of a cliff and there were about three other cars and a handful of cyclist. As we got out of the car and headed to the cliff we saw a long narrow path that went way out into the sea on top of a narrow cliff. As it turns out this place is on many top 10 list for things to see on Highway 1. Here we were looking for a place to turn around and we found this beautiful spot. All three of us headed down the path and when we got to the final overlook the family that was there said they were watching a whale down below. They told us where to look and said that he came up for air about every 3 or 4 minutes. Sure enough he came up for air and it was a grand site to see. We could clearly see the water spray and a bit of his back as he dived back down. After watching that a few times we headed back up and noticed gun turrets that we had missed on the way down. They were from WWII and used to protect the coast line. We had seen a sign for Muir Woods and decided to go take a look. Much like the Hollywood sign area we saw lots of people parking along the roads and walking literally miles to get to the entrance. We decided to save this for another trip and head to the campground. This time I let the GPS tell us where to go and it took us back to 101 and we were at the campground in about 45 minutes. We noticed the closer we got the warmer it got. By the time we arrived it was about 95. We pulled in and we did notice they had a lot of trees and we hopped we would be camping under them. When I checked in I said we needed shade and she gave us a great site with one pretty big tree and grass! We got settled in and then headed out to get some groceries and maybe get the oil changed. We just went over 4000 miles on this trip so far! Wow! Anyway the oil place was closed but we did get our supplies restocked. We headed back to camp and Lyn fixed a great dinner of stir fry chicken with wild rice with an IPA and a Malibu Pineapple thrown in! Yum yum! After dinner they showed a movie in the pool area for the kids and we could kind of watch it from our site. We hung about till about 9:30 and decided to call it a night. The temperatures had dropped and it looked like a good night for sleeping. Tomorrow we head out for a look around in San Francisco. Looking forward to each day!