The drive up was nothing special. We pulled off to get gas in Novato, CA. At the Shell station near the exit regular was $4.199/gallon. We drove a little over a block past it and found a Safeway station. By using Kathy's Safeway grocery card we were able to fill up for $3.599/gallon. The place was packed! As one person pulled out another drove up and "parallel parked" at the empty pump. Right after I took the photo someone parked in front of the U-Haul truck.
The last 5 miles to the camp was a relatively narrow winding road. That part was OK but there were a lot of places where it appeared that the branches were low enough that they might hit to top of our motorhome. The camp regularly has volunteers come up with 5th wheel units but most of them are not 13' tall, like our motorhome. (Actually it is 13' to the top of the satellite dish, and 12'-7" to the top of the air conditioning units.)
Frank and Sue, his wife, have a home east of Oakland. They have been volunteers at the camp for 10 years. For the past 5 years they have not moved their 5th wheel off the camp. They are full time volunteers, the go to their "sticks and bricks" home every 3rd or 4th weekend. I should have taken some photos while at the camp, but they would not have done the place justice. When we parked at the admin bldg and got out of the car we were surrounded by huge coastal redwoods. They were typically 4' or larger in diameter and had to be nearly 100' tall. It was just awesome. The tallest coastal redwood on record is 379' tall. 178 of the trees have been measured to be over 350' tall. The current "largest" coastal redwood on record is 26' in diameter and 320' tall.
The downside is that because of the dense foilage the sun doesn't hit the ground during the winter months. Most of the ground was damp, as though it had sprinkled rain during the morning, even though it had not rained. Frank told us that the temperature in the camp was typically 10-12 degrees colder than it was in Sebastopol, which was less than 10 miles from the camp.
There are currently 3 MMAP (Mobile Missionary Assistance Program) couples on site. They are renovating one of the dormitories, a job that will probably not be completed for months. They leave the last weekend in February. We had a chance to meet them and visit with them for awhile. One couple is from Washington, another from Oregon and the 3rd was from South Dakota.
I think the work part of volunteering at Mt. Gilead would be fine. Getting there, with the low branches, might be a problem. Also, cell phone service is almost non-existent and they only have WiFi available in a building quite a ways, still within walking distance, from the campground area. We drove back to town on a different route and it was far less suitable. We would not go up there until Feb 27th or 28th so we have time to give it some thought before calling Frank and giving him our decision.
On our way back home we drove over towards the coast and came back on highway 1. We saw a different side of California. Lots of very hilly pasture areas with quite a few cattle, including dairy cattle, prior to getting to the coast. We pulled off the highway just south of Stinson Beach and took the following photos. The dots in the center of the photo are two adults and two children playing at the edge of the water. Up top there ws no railing of any kind. One step over the weeds in this photo and you would drop hundreds of feet, you might bounce a few times on the way down, but you wouldn't stop until you were at the beach level. There were some fools, we think they were French, who stopped with two kids. One of the kids was a teen and the other was a pre-teen. The parents let both of the kids walk right up and stand on the weeds.
The sun set while we were there. It went down so quickly.
It has already set in the photo below.
This photo shows the road we where it went around the next "bluff". I was glad we (Kathy) drove this route but, even though there are a few places where I would like to see again, I would never drive, or ride, this route again. This is a photo of one of the really good areas. We went mile after mile after mile with no guard rail and drops of up to 500', with only a couple of feet of shoulder. There were so many sharp curves that the typical speed limit was 15-20 mph. To make matters worse the last half hour was in the dark.
We arrived back home around 7 PM. I forgot to mention that we did stop at a discount bread store and a large roadside fruit market during our travels. All in all it was another enjoyable day.
Good night and may God bless you and yours.
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