Highway 1 north of Mendocino and Fort Brag —remarkable in that it apparently does not survive on tourism— is a twisted and ‘whiny’ stretch of road connecting back to the four lanes of Highway 101.  Following the recommendation of a local RV park manager who actually appeared to like talking with his guests about RV road conditions, we opted for the miles longer, but shorter travel time connection through to Willits.

Please note that while I sometimes spell “kauphy” as it sounds, I did not have a quick answer from my computer dictionary how to correctly spell an adjective similar to “a squiggly bit of road.” Having had “whiney” red flagged, I think I will use it making a belated recommendation from navigator Bobby that perhaps the best way to travel a ‘Whiny Wonderful One’ is from, Bodega to Bragg, as it is safer touring north, than south.

Why? Let me put it a way a macho truck drivin’ man would understand. When the little lady sits way up high looking over the guardrail (if there is one) side of a narrow windy (sp?) road —especially when her view on the “outside” equals that of a flying in a small plane over a ocean breaking on rugged rocks 1,000 feet below— even the best of travel’n buddies will ‘whine’.

I know from experience that when Motorhome Maggy climbs down from her dashboard perch, and joins Bobby on the floor, eyes shut tight, that a, “Nah, this is nuttin’” from a driver who takes great pleasure in practicing RV driving skills to venture forth to Baja, will not work.

 I guess the other bit of advice worth mentioning with those we would love to talk into being good neighbors for a day or two —to share in one of Bobby’s AlaskaTravelMagazine sponsored sourdough pancake get togethers— is that as retiring baby boomers hit the road looking for the one commercial RV parking space available for every 79 licensed RVs, please do not contribute to private short term parks selling out to regimented time share management.

Our complaint is really not about dollars, but the serendipity to spend the last seconds of our lives escaping PAC supported bureaucratic control freaks. They know that truly retired freedom of the roaders do not respond well to the restrictions of reservations. Toss “location” and “season” into the mix and I have to tell you the best time for us “tourists” to leisurely meander the Pacific coastline is Spring, and Fall. 

Traveling safely you need to have enough free time to anchor your land yacht, snuggled down, protected from the exciting storms blowing in —all year ‘round—from an ocean named for being “peaceful in character!” By listening to CB weather reports of sea conditions intended for small craft, we were able to climb over the crest of the Coast Range through a mere skiff of snow, and make it all the way to a RV boat launch park run very well through a volunteer host, for a financially distressed Humbolt County.

About here I perhaps need to explain that I pride myself in trying to follow the intent of author John Steinbeck (of East of Eden/Mendicino fame) in his big picture social-economic connection comments made in his classic, Travels With Charley.

From the picture windows of Jed we were able witness the sunset struggles of the last of the Far Western Neolithic hunter-gathers timing the moments to fish before riding a full gale back to safe harbor. These hard working entrepreneurs are truly “at financial risk” being in a finance company paper partnership that owns a boat that doesn’t have much value as a yacht, instead of living a life as a San Francisco paper partnership trader who pays more per foot to dock their fair-weather business write-off at the St. Francis Yacht Club, than a fowl weather fisherman takes home to feed his family.

Could it be that these small “food industry” businessmen are the first casualties in the hidden global warming world battle over resources. These quaint and picturesque purveyors of naturally wonderful wild salmon, sometimes get so desperate to meet payments I have seen them sell a whole “supermarket fresh” tuna direct from the deck at $1 per pound. “See,” I can almost hear social commentator Jay Leno saying, “ they just do not understand what upscale people want. Can the name and put a fancy description only a high-end restaurant waiter can pronounce, and they could get $1 an ounce. Exactly!”  

Oh, yes, having stirred a pot filled with a simple fisherman’s stew —very close to the expensive San Fransico treat called Chiopine— I need to explain why these otherwise intelligent, but rough looking men, are silly enough to be out to sea in bad weather.

Well, after a huge multi-international fishing fleet of offshore untraceable umbrella corporations (unless you have inside information through your SF stock broker) totally raped and pillaged a fishery with a natural balance that has worked to feed man since the days of Christ, these gathers have also had to contend with dry land farmers. Both corporate fish farms, and the drawing down of the natural flow needed by salmon and steelhead spawning in the Klamath River system, have led to traditional hunter/gathers hanging on through a “wait and see” closure to see if they can supply the politically and economically correct demand for “wild salmon.”

If we were bright we would listen to the people who first noticed the consequences of the climatic changes brought about by El Nino. Believe it or not this journalist (sorry, I know I am truly just another opinionated cultural tourist) met a trailer trash traveler who was a former Nevada free range cowboy looking for a job in the “food gathering” business of rounding up fish, as he was hungry for protein. What had economically distressed him was that “his” cow and calf spread was sold right out from under his horse for the groundwater that will be piped 275 miles to support developers selling houses to young, already at risk financially, families in Loss Vegas.

I left Arcata for the redwoods with a little of his “food gathering” humor bouncing around my noggin. This was. “I know the bovine critter. You want to see a MAD cow, then ask her to dump a babe face first into a foot-n-half of feed lot manure!” I know this really doesn’t have anything to do with tourists traveling Highway 101 — unless looking for “quaintness” among the simple folk.