Why State Parks

Model of Apple's new "Spaceship" facility in Cupertino CA

Well, back to square one with my State Parks plan. After driving back to Santa Rosa for breakfast on Tuesday, we headed for Clear Lake State Park. This is a park on the largest natural lake entirely in the state of California. However, when we got there we found it was closed because of the Ranch Fire (the largest ever in the state of California). So, we headed back towards the coast, away from the smoke and ended up in Ukiah. We stayed at the Fairgrounds RV Park.

Ukiah was rather disappointing. We have a map of the spots in California that Huell Howser has visited and this city was on the map. However, it turns out we HAVE been here before and already seen the spots he talked about.

One of my reasons for deciding to support state parks this trip is because it wasn't too long ago that Governor Brown put over 70 park closures in his budget in order to balance it. Due to much hue and outcry. to many citizens groups stepping up to mantain some of the parks, and to raising the rates considerably I think all the parks were saved. When I looked at the list of those he wanted to close, I saw those we had already visited or passed by because they were full including Jack London and Sugarloaf. So, it is very important for all of us to keep supporting these pieces of California's beauty and history.

I also must confess that after passing by so many vineyards and wineries in this part of California (Napa Valley and Sonoma County), we did buy a bottle of wine to enjoy before settling in for the night.