Sunday, August 12, 2018

Hanging around Santa Rosa CA

The first night of our trip was Thursday, August 2 (Dad's birthday). We left Santa Monica in the afternoon and drove to Pismo Beach. I had checked the Internet and all the State Parks in this area were full, so we tried a county park that we have stayed at in the past. We lucked out and got the last space at Oceano Beach County Park.

The next 2 days and nights were spent at my Colonial Dames conference in Santa Clara. We remembered that Chris used to live here and that we never had found a camp ground that we really liked. So we just did our usual and stayed in the Wal-Mart parking lot! So, much for my state parks plan!

Suzanne at Santa Clara Mission
On Sunday we went to mass at the Santa Clara Mission which is on the grounds of the Jesuit Santa Clara University. They have a beautiful campus with old mission style buildings and lots of gardens.
This church is the third time they have built the mission church. We also drove through San Francisco and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge.We ended up in Santa Rosa, home of Luther Burbank and lots of old historic buildings. We stayed in Spring Lake Park campground which is on a reservoir and still not a state park!

Finally on Monday, August 5 we hit the jackpot, we found 2 state parks! First we drove to Jack London State Historic Park near Glen Ellen. This is the place where Jack London lived with his wife, Charmiane, and wrote many of his books. However, he found that he really loved farming and experimenting with new ways of growing plants. He took an old, used up piece of land, nurtured it using many techniques from the Chinese and ended up with a vineyard and winery, pigs, horses, and a beautiful green paradise. His tragedy came when the modern home they were building burned (that was Wolf House) and he never quite recovered from that.

Jack London's home
We then drove up to Sugarloaf Ridge State Park to camp. They had several spots left, so we got to choose the best one for us. Sugarloaf was named because there is a volcanic ridge that looks like the sugarloaf cone of crystallized sugar which is how they used to sell sugar. The park also has an observatory, which is only open on weekends.

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