Day 23 - Willits, CA to Petaluma, CA

The Golden Rule RV Park wasn't too crowded overnight.  Perhaps this is because it isn't really tourist season.  The lady in the office did say that they don't get as many visitors as they like even in season.  It's a pity as this is a charming little spot with very nice people. 

 This is California so it wasn't a complete surprise to find 2 young men car camping and sitting outside playing guitars and singing this morning.  They sounded quite nice and it made for an interesting start to the day.

 There are a lot of deer around the park.  One of the campers was feeding them and the deer didn't seem afraid of him at all.  Brett was out looking at the wildlife last evening and he spotted a white deer (no pictures).  Thankfully he did not spot a rattlesnake.  I advised him not to go tramping in the grass and a sign at the office this morning offered a similar warning.

We were nestled in just about the only position we could be in and still get the slides open.
















We are in what I consider more typical northern California terrain.  There are plenty of grass covered hill, the grass is mostly brown and the hills are dotted with oaks.

Not only is it enough to know that we stayed at the home of Seabiscuit, but if we'd been here on a weekend we could have taken a tour of the ranch, seen his stable and had a look at his grave which features a large statue of the equine himself.  Sadly, we had to settle for the photo of the sign.









We had only a 90 mile drive today which makes it our shortest so far.  I am learning to run "Gas Buddy" better now.  I remembered to click on the Diesel tab and I also found that you can see pictures of the stations.  This is handy when you need to figure out if your rig can fit into the driveway and under the canopy before you've torn off the air conditioner. 
This is certainly an agricultural area.  We saw a big truck full of pumpkins!  As we got near Ukiah, we noticed our first vineyard and it was pretty much vineyard sprawl after that. 

In Geyserville, we drove by the Coppola Winery.  This looked very elegant.  Our plan is to visit some of the vineyards in the area later in the week.


We arrived at the Petaluma KOA just before 1pm.  After we got set up and had lunch I had that gotta-take-a-nap feeling come over me and crashed for a few hours.  Who knew that a short day would be so hard on me.

Once revived we opted to go our for a bit of dinner.   We found a tiny Mexican restaurant called El Gallo Taqueria and had a really good meal.  I had chicken enchiladas mole and Brett didn't (he had something with beef). 

 Our chef and waiter.

 I read a review that said this place had the best Mexican food in the area.  We were not disappointed.

 It was a very small space.  Brett was a bit taken aback at first since he was expecting a more proper restaurant.  But he stayed and happily it was a good move.

I forgot to take a picture of the food when it was delivered so I decided that this would have to do.  I think it proves that we enjoyed it. 















Our last adventure was a stop at the Lucky supermarket for some milk.  As we parked and were walking into the market, a man in a parked car whistled and said "sir" so Brett went over to see what he wanted.  I heard Brett laugh and then he came back over to me.  He said the guy told him that he was a jerk because he came from out of state.  Friendly fellow that!  We went into the store and the guy didn't blow up the truck or slash the tires while we were there so all is well.  If something like that happens again I will document his license plate and face with my iPhone before I turn my back. 

We are looking forward to tomorrow when we will be visiting with my friend Saskia in Vallejo.  We haven't seen each other for a very long time and it will be wonderful to get caught up.