Sonora to the California Coast

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Sonora, Coloma Rafting Trip, Auburn, San Francisco and up the California Coast on Rte 1

Sat July 12 to Mon July 21

Sonora - Number One Brother

As we were preparing to leave Yosemite I checked the map and saw that the town of Sonora was right on our way to the location for our whitewater rafting trip near Coloma and Placerville. I had not been certain how the timing would work out so I hadn’t made any advance plans to see my Uncle John and his wife Connie, who live in Sonora, but I called and found out that they would he home from the theater around the time we would roll into Sonora, and would be happy to have us drop by. So we found our way and had a good chance to catch up over cold drinks and while watching the veritable flock of hummingbirds that gathered on their balcony. Then they took us to a local pizza place for dinner - perfect for the boys! So we had a really pleasant visit (of course staying away from national politics as a topic .) Then we made our way to Placerville to find a motel with WiFi so I could do some work, and with a laundry so we could head in to our 4 day rafting/kayaking trip with clean clothes.

OARS Rafting and Kayaking

When we reached the OARS camp on the American River the next AM, we learned that we were the sole party signed up for the trip -- so we had the undivided attention of our guide. It was a bit of a loss for the kids that there were not other families with kids for them to hang out with - as it was a “family” trip and when we did our Sierra Club trip that was one of the fun aspects of the trip - interacting with all the other participants and their kids. However, to make up for the scarcity of other clients, we got the benefit of many guides. There was a group of guides in training who were there for the summer and had just gone through a training camp, so they joined us for all of our trips. Our guide, KZ, was a fun person, took good care of us, and knew a lot about the local flora and fauna, but the younger guides were also friendly, fun, and interacted really well with the boys - giving them tips, and encouraging their interests.

White Water

So our first day of white water we set out with a group of several rafts (there were day trippers who drove in from Sacramento or the Sonora area) to do the Middle fork of the American River. It started out gentle and then we got to the more thrilling white water, with rapids like Hospital Bar and Devil’s Hole. We did well through all of them except Hospital Bar, where we got hung up and our guide had to push us off the rock. But with only 4 of us in the raft - and given that we’d been paddling much of the day (oh my aching arms!) I don’t feel so bad. We did better on Day 3 with some big rapids with scary names - and made it through in almost perfect form. At the biggest rapids, 2 different photography companies have cameras set up to snap pictures of each raft that comes through - and then they will sell them to you for a pretty hefty sum of you like. The fun of the memories is enough for me. Probably if I’d ever been dumped from a raft into cold water I might not feel the same way, but since I have not fallen out so far I am keen on the feeling of safety of having a guide and being up on top of the water in the big raft with the life jacket and all.

Being able to come back to camp after a tiring (but not too tiring) day on the river and have dinner prepared and served by someone else was a wonderful treat after almost a month and a half of cooking. Also our guide worked at a local winery, so we had good wine with dinner. The base camp was right on the river and the boys were able to wade or swim, and climb among the rocks. Max spent a lot of time using the paint rocks he had collected in the southwest to draw on the rocks, depicting the local wildlife - mainly the Merganser ducks and Canada Geese. The camp had a family of skunks who were not tame, but accustomed to people, and not easily startled. They would come scouting for crumbs and generally wander the campground after dark, so we had to me certain to make a fair amount of sound walking around so as not to surprise any of them.

Sea Kayaks on Silver Lake

Our second day was spent kayaking on Silver Lake - a high mountain lake - which meant paddling was very pleasant, as there was a breeze and the air temperature was cooler anyhow. On the far side of the lake we walked over the rocks and up a little stream, exploring the pools, looking up wildflowers, finding the remains of an old mining operation. Rollie explored further up stream to a little waterfall. Max collected rocks. We had lunch (prepared by the guides) on the rocks at the shore, and then set off back toward the other shore, exploring a small island on the way. Rollie and I were in a double kayak, and each of the boys was in a single - which was great as it allowed them to linger or speed up.

Our third and fourth days were spent river kayaking and rafting, respectively. I had a little panic because I was not able to do the “self rescue” from the water which involves getting back into the inflatable kayak - which when you have short arms and are wearing a fat life preserver…well, I couldn’t do it. But after getting back in with help I was reassured that if I were to fall out I could also, in most cases, get to shore instead. So off we set - and once in the craft instead of in the water next to it, I was fine, and really enjoyed the process of scoping out the water and the rapids to choose my path through. For some of the bigger rapids the guides would help point the best way, and then on one rapid we all got out to scout it together, to learn a bit about that process - which is what you have to do when kayaking a river you’re not already familiar with, or when weather conditions have changed the river. I chose my path carefully, paddled hard, and ended up going a different way and taking the rapid backwards…………hmnn so much for planning when you lack the skill to execute your chosen path! But I read the water right even though I didn’t end up going that way, and I came through upright - which to my mind is what counts. All along the shore there were fat blackberries, so we made frequent forays to the banks to gather them, and swam, splashed and waded as well as paddled our way downriver. It was just the right mix of modest excitement and laziness for me.

Gold Country

Our last day rafting was fun because we were joined by another family of grandparents and their 11 year-old grandson - and took several big rapids really well. The big water came in the early part of the trip - which helped, since after 3 days of paddling I had sore muscles. Our guide was happy because evidently one rapid had been defying the younger guides lately and they had dumped clients - so they were watching her “line” to see how to take the rapid and we gave a near perfect performance (which is to say we did exactly what she told us to and her instructions were the right ones for the conditions - as well as her steering). We lunched in Marshall Gold State Park, and our guide was full of stories about the early mining history of the area (it is where gold was first discovered, precipitating the California Gold Rush).

Auburn

That evening we went out for Chinese food to a really good restaurant our guide suggested and then drove the 30 minutes to Auburn to visit my Uncle Darrell and his wife Trudi. We determined that I hadn’t seen them since I was in grad school, when the family had gathered in Emporia, Kansas, to celebrate my grandmother Vera’s 80th birthday. It was fun to visit with them and learn about their move to western California, the details of their businesses, and hear news of my cousins and their kids. By this time having met 3 of the Williams brothers, Rollie could certainly see the family resemblance!

Rollie’s Side of the Family

We were able to visit with all 3 of my father's brothers (plus an Uncle on my mother’s side!) on this trip. The kids said “you have a lot of uncles!” We'll have to catch my father's sister on another trip.

Of Rollie's 5 sisters and brother we visited with 2 sisters on this trip. (And we have seen 2 of his 3 east coast sisters and his brother in Florida recently - leaving only his sister in Atlanta unscathed by our rag tag crew!)

San Francisco

The next morning we packed up to head to San Francisco to visit Rollie’s sister Kathy, husband Julian, and kids Anna (in college) and son Daniel (headed for college in the fall). We drove by way of Sonoma and got a glimpse of wine country - rolling hills planted with vines almost as far as the eye could see, and lots of large, plush winery buildings to cater to the wine tourists. They made us very comfortable in their beautiful home in Tiburon. The boys liked having access to the swimming pool, the TV, and getting to see Julian’s extensive collection of minerals from all over the world.

The highlights, for me, of our too-short forays into the city were the farmer’s market at the Ferry Building, Chinatown, cycling to the Japanese Tea Garden and Arboretum in Golden Gate Park, and the rolling-mist views of the bay on the Tiburon side of the bridge. The boys got to watch “The Dark Knight” at a big-screen movie theater. Julian and Kathy cooked lovely meals for us and we hung out and talked about books and camping, politics, family and kids.

We also took an afternoon to visit Rollie’s ex-Oaker friend Tall Todd and his girlfriend over in Richmond, where they have bought an historic house that right now is a combination of a solid shell and a wreck, but will be lovely when they are done renovating it. It has redwood beams, some nice old woodwork and now that it has been jacked up on its foundation, a basically sound structure (good bones) but it will take a lot of loving care to revive it - so they have a project! We had a good visit over tea and talked about books and cats, dance, house renovation, and travel. They loaned us a Northern California Guidebook that proved very helpful as we headed north.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Thanks and Kudos to Rollie for Driving

I should have a fanfare sound here or something. It needs to be pointed out that Rollie did most of the driving on this trip - about 99.8%! (MISSING)Much of the trip west I needed to work whenever we were anywhere with some cell service - and to work on documents at other times. This meant that I could be free to do whatever the family was doing when we were not in the car. Also - although not as often as I needed to do keep up - I would compose the blog text. Then I would look at my camera, and sometimes when I had the energy, Max’s camera too, review all the photos for that segment of the trip, choose the best ones (or ones that illustrated the text), re-name them, and then connect to the internet to upload the whole shebang (often being forced to do it 1 picture at a time) to the website. Sometimes Miles helped with choosing photos - so thanks to him for that. And a big thanks to Rollie for giving me the chance to do all that, and also to be the principal navigator - a role I really enjoy.

I love studying maps. When not actively navigating, I study the map for all its interesting details: names of rivers, nearby geological or historical features, topography (elevations of mountains). I call out the names of the peaks and ranges we are looking at, and also I am thinking of where we could go on our next trip, or noticing something interesting we might head for this time - yes we made some impromptu choices - despite appearances, not every ½ second was planned!! Also I often would look up a place name in the John McPhee book Annals of the Former World to get the geological lowdown on the area. So we took in smatterings of geology and the history of geology as we travelled.

Up the Coast - Point Reyes National Seashore

Well one thing is certain - we should have planned at least 2, and preferably 3 days to travel up the California coast on Rte 1 instead of the 1 day I planned, especially since we left Tiburon around noon instead of 9 am as I had hoped. I guess the road was a lot more winding than I had stopped to think about. I mean I could see the squiggles on the map - but had perhaps become a bit too blasé about estimating distance by the ruler on the map instead of adding up the little red miles displayed. We drove into Point Reyes and after stopping at the visitor center for a hiking guide, headed for the shore and took a brief walk through the dunes, out onto the beach and back again. The boys, of course, were in their element, getting in the water, collecting stones and playing in the sand.

At one point when we were turning back, I saw some seals in the distance headed away from us. They boys took off running to see if they could get close enough for a photo. By the time they stopped and turned back, we were so far ahead we could no longer encourage hurry - and the upshot was they came back to the car at their own pace - a good 20 to 30 minutes after Rollie and I had returned. They came bearing a huge sea plant of some kind - very weird, and were dismayed that I was impatient, since I had to try to make a work-related call by a certain time, and we had no bars in the parking lot at Point Reyes.

Wild Coast and Fort Ross

So heading up the wild coast (I guess I imagined there would be no place in California that didn’t get good cell service - but I was wrong) and hoping to make contact with my manager for a phone conference, I found myself in a place with no cell service. We stopped in a town so I could use a land line, but I didn’t manage to connect. So we grocery shopped for our next week or so of camping and continued up the coast with an eye out for any on-beach campgrounds not marked “full.”

But we ended up pressing on to Fort Ross State Park, which Julian had recommended to us, and stayed in the campground which is just outside the state park grounds south of the old Russian Fort. That evening the boys went down to the rocky cove and looked in the tidal pools. They came back very excited about what they had seen, but we were too tired to go have a look-see. Overnight we were visited by a creature (I heard it on the table) and awoke to muddy little raccoon tracks on the tablecloth the next AM. Then we all went down to the shore and the boys introduced us to the fat yellow and pink and purple starfish they had found, and the anemones. The tide was coming in and we poked about in fascination, Max took lots of pictures, and we collected very round striped stones from the shore. Then we went back to break camp and go tour the Fort. Its visitor center was very interesting, explaining about the history of Russian conquest of the coast, the lives of the native Americans of the area, how the Russian fur trade brought changes, and the eventual transfer to US control.

Going up the coast we stopped in a little town for a seafood lunch/dinner that was well-prepared and tasty (the boys wanted clam chowder, and Max and I ordered different seafood sandwiches and split them). A bit later after stopping at many overlooks to look at the precipitous cliffs and lovely views, the road came down to the coast again and we stopped at a little beach to wade. Miles got caught by a big wave coming into a rocky inlet and got soaked to the waist. Max and Miles ran around while Rollie and I sat and listened to the waves. Next thing we knew they were climbing a huge rock in the middle of the inlet. Getting down was harder since the tide was coming in. Miles had to change to dry clothes after we got back to the car. On we headed trying to make it to Humboldt Redwoods State Park before total dark. Our campground here was trickier to find than most. The park is big, has multiple access points, only one visitor center that we could tell, and not the best signage inside the park. But we had called from our seafood stop to tell them we were coming in late for the 2nd night of a 3 night reservation at the Albee campground (having missed the first night) so at least when we got there our reservation was intact - and we were able to set up in the dark (being now adepts at this!!) and fix a light dinner without much hardship.

Next blog: Humboldt Redwoods State Park, driving through smoke from widespread forest fires, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Crater Lake

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Additional photos below

Photos: 36, Displayed: 34

Photos

The American River
vew from our campsite

Miles and Rollie
relaxing and looking up wildflowers

The falls
Rollie hiked up to these pretty little falls above Silver Lake

Trudi, Darrell, me, Rollie and Max
photo courtesy Miles

Artsy shot
Rollie's picture of Miles and I on the semi-circular bridge, reflected in the water.

Japanese Tea Garden scene
Most tea garden and arboretum pix are by Max

View of the coast
Point Reyes and tidal pool pix by Max

Comments

[inkwellpatina]

Prominent Typo
Ah - I hate that. Excuse the typo in the title. I am trying to edit and correct it, but am not certain it is "taking." -- Amelia