[Nobbc] Longer distances/ overnight

[Mark Darley]

I had a fabulous drive up the coast the weekend before last with  
incredible weather...sunny and windless.

We (Sam in his Boxter and me in the MGA) drove from Mill Valley to  
Gualala up the coast having lunch in Duncan Mills at Cape Fear.  We  
stayed at St Orrs and got a great deal on a  2 bedroom cottage  
midweek. (food was good but a bit overpriced I thought).

The next day we drove on up to Point Arena and had maximum visibility  
from the top of the lighthouse, and then had an interesting drive over  
the mountains to Boonville.
Interesting because of the amount of fine gravel that was washing out  
of the hills.  At one point we had to pull over because Sam had gravel  
making fearsome sounds after lodging in the front disc brake of his  
Boxter....not a problem in my low tech drums.  He managed to dislodge  
it after some energetic backing up.
Most of the route was accompanied by the sound of fine grit bouncing  
off our paintwork....not recommended for those of you worried about a  
bit of wear-and-tear.

 From time to time the views were spectacular as we were looking out  
across the Californian equivalent of a mini alpine landscape.  Highly  
recommended route for those that enjoy windy, gravelly, damp roads.   
It was honestly no worse than some of the roads on the north side of  
Mount Tam.....just longer.

We had a simple but tasty lunch in Boonville, and motored on to Ukiah  
for an extraordinarily good supper at Petrona which was enhanced by a  
bottle of Hallcrest 2005 Pinot Noir Upper Block that I brought with  
me...great stuff.  (I also packed half a case of oil but we thought  
better of adding it to  the meal. However the MGA had a reasonable  
appetite for it!)

The next couple of days we attended a workshop at Frey vineyards, and  
then Sam sped home down 101, while I got happily lost in the mountains  
east of Ukiah with snow on the roadsides, and finally found my way  
through the eastern winecountry back to Mill Valley.

For those of you interested in views from Point Arena Lighthouse log  
on to
http://galleries.markdarleyphoto.com/PtArenaRoadTrip/

The rest of the time I was too busy driving to take photos!

Cheers
Mark


Mark Darley
markdarley at mac.com
415 381 5452



On Jan 17, 2011, at 6:53 PM, Greg Tatarian wrote:

> Dan,
>
> Mendocino is about the distance I had in mind, myself, and is one of  
> the destinations I was considering.
>
> Let's see what other input we get.
>
> Cheers,
> Greg
>
>
>
>
> On 1/17/2011 4:58 PM, Daniel Drummond wrote:
>> Greg,
>>
>> I like the idea of an overnighter.  How does Mendocino sound as a  
>> destination?  Too far?  Not far enough?  Most of the people in the  
>> group I see maybe once a month, and then most of the time either on  
>> the road in front of me or in the rearview mirror.  An overnighter  
>> would afford a great opportunity to get to know everyone a bit  
>> better, much like the tech session/BBQ at your place last summer.   
>> Count me in.  I'll be happy to help organize it if there's enough  
>> interest in doing it.
>>
>> Dan
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