Over the Hill and Far Away……….

We left San Francisco under a cloud; it being misty and cool this morning. We had decided that if we took Highway 1 up the coast again it was going to make the journey up to our next stop too long so we opted to take the more direct route along the 101. This still took us over the Golden Gate Bridge, which was delightful, but the next 50 or so miles were on a busy six lane motorway, which was less fun.

Once we’d got beyond that bit the journey got progressively better as we passed through the Napa Valley with vineyards and green rolling hills to each side. We passed through Hopland, Ukiah and Willits and beyond there the road narrowed as we got into the hills and began to see the Redwood forests. Just around Legget we were really into the Redwoods and at one point we were on a narrow two-lane road with massive trees blocking out the sun around us. This part of the ride was great , with excellent scenery and a nice winding road to enjoy.

The temperature when we left San Francisco was 52F but towards the end of the journey it was in the 90s although we are still quite close to the coast.

After about 210 miles we arrived in Garberville. Apparently it was originally known as “Dogtown” until the original postmaster, Mr Garber, decided to name it after himself. It is a very small town with a population of 900 but importantly for our purposes it has a decent hotel and was about the right distance for a day’s ride from San Francisco. The fact that it seems to be regarded as the cannabis capital of California was merely incidental!

It seems that according to state law a limited amount of cannabis can be grown and consumed for the alleviation of certain medical conditions (and we have actually seen billboards by the side of the road from “Dr Dope” offering certification for that purpose). It varies how rigorously the requirements are enforced but presumably the rules are fairly lax here. However although there seem to be shops selling it we haven’t seen anybody actually using it.

Our needs being more basic, we took ourselves over the road from the hotel to the Branding Iron Saloon in search of beer and burgers. We’ve often walked into places like this just wanting a drink and have had to fend off attempts to get us to order food but ironically, this time when we did actually want to eat, they didn’t do food! We did however get a recommendation for the local pizza place which is just behind the hotel.

Sicilitos, the pizza place, was rather quaint with old metal advertising signs all over the walls and a small dog in a cage in a cupboard under the TV. We did enquire about this and were assured that this was only a temporary arrangement and later in the evening the dog would be allowed out to sit on a barstool with the rest of the customers!

The waitress told us that she had been to the UK when she was about 15. She had gone to Wales with her Grandfather who is a Native American and who had been invited over to build a sweat lodge at a place whose name she could not recall “but it had a lighthouse”. We told her it was probably Cardiff……… He apparently also managed to blag his way into Stonehenge where he lit a fire in the middle of the circle – much to the consternation of the staff there! She’d also been to “that town that had a lot of ghosts” – sounded a bit like Middlesbrough at chucking out time.

We are now back in our room and watching a bit of TV before bed. We’ve got quite a long ride tomorrow so we need to make an early start. We’ve just heard the first fight breaking out at Sicilitos over the way so it’s unlikely we’ll be heading back there tonight.