We spent the night in Calistoga and from what I could tell it is a very lovely, quaint little town surrounded by a LOT of wineries. Calistoga is known for some very good eating establishments but we did not partake.
We left Calistoga bound for San Juan Bautista and this is what I have to say about that - I will not be going back to Calistoga in a motorhome. Now don't get me wrong - I would love to go back to Calistoga and do a lot of exploring and visiting the wineries, partaking in the lovely food, etc., but it will be in a car - not a motorhome. Getting there was a hairy experience for me, but leaving was not very good either. We had more narrow, curvy roads and lots of trees with lots of branches hanging over the road. Not a good fit for a motorhome. We hit some branches on the passenger side, that were pretty substantial. Not wispy little skinny branches but thick heavy branches. We were doing about 35MPH and I just about lost my cookies. By the time we pulled into a gas station to fuel up, just before getting back on the 101, I was literally sick to my stomach. Luckily I have a small trash can with plastic bag liners at my feet. No bueno. Gary did a cursory check for obvious damage but couldn't see any. I think when we arrive home, a closer look is in order.
Here's a picture of our site in Calistoga. It's at the fairgrounds. Nothing special just a place to park and call home for a night.
So merrily we go on down the road but wait - we have to avoid San Francisco as we make our way to San Juan Bautista! Gary had mentioned the night before we would be crossing a big bridge - I didn't ask any questions but stored that info for later recall. Sure enough we crossed a bridge alrighty - the Richmond Bridge. That's right people it's a mighty long double decker bridge, and we were on the bottom deck. And just to make it more fun - they are doing construction on the bridge, so there were just two lanes and some concrete barriers for us to drive along. Fun times I tell ya. But we lived to tell about it.
We proceeded on and made our way to Betabel RV Park. I think I read that Betabel is "sugar beet" in Spanish. 156 sites, strictly RV's, FHU, lots of pull throughs, but boy you are close to your neighbors. We are here three days, mostly because we don't like to be on the road on the weekends and we don't like to leave RV parks on Sundays with all the hordes of other people, so Monday it is. Very friendly staff, nice clean laundry (yes people I had to do laundry again!). We are very near Gilroy - the Garlic Capital of the world. I'm happy to report that there is no overwhelming smell of garlic as I have experienced this in the past, so perhaps the garlic is not ready for harvest. We drove on back country roads today to Hollister and then to San Juan Bautista, where we visited the mission. Loved the country roads, this area is called the salad bowl, because they grow a lot of veggies for your salads. Today we passed all kinds of wonderful veggies growing in beautiful fields; I could readily idenitfy red lettuce, artichokes, cabbage, all sorts of lettuce. Lots of farm stands and we went to the Farmer's Market in Gilroy this morning. I bought delicious strawberries, beautiful nectarine and peaches and amazing tasting tomatoes. In fact had a tomato sandwich for dinner! A-mazing! They grow a lot of apricots and sugar beets, just to name a few more.
When we arrived in San Juan Bautista we noticed near the mission there was a group of people sitting around some drummers and what looked like Indians dancing. As we got closer it was and I talked to a lady about what was happening. She said they were staging a peaceful/prayerful protest against the Pope's idea to canonize Father Junipero Serra due to his poor treatment of the Indians. We watched a while, they had sage burning in the center of the ring, the dancers were circling around. I noticed that there were several State Park Rangers across the street watching. Fascinating to me because of how I was feeling about the poor Indians earlier in our trip!
The Mission was pretty typical but the church apparently is the largest built with three aisles. Mass is still said here and it is a fully functioning parish. I love looking at all the old furniture and relics from the past.
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