After a fairly quick visit to San Francisco we left via the Golden Gate Bridge, it was far easier to leave from where we stayed overnight than had been our arrival to the city. The fog level was down to a few hundred feet showing only about half of the height of the bridge and a few cars in front of us, it made for a rather strange crossing. We left the 101 and joined the one as soon as possible, once again we were climbing fairly tall hills on winding roads, hugging the coast, unfortunately because of the dense fog we didn’t have the opportunity to see the spectacular views at their best, however what we could see was very impressive. The drives for the rest of the 
day took us inland slightly before returning to the coast at Bodega Bay, where we spent the night in a State forest Camp. The following day we encountered a lot of road works, which on the twisty narrow roads presented some challenges, they actually had an escort vehicle to lead you to the end of the road works. We stopped for breakfast on a cliff overlook with lovely valley and river views below. The rest of the day the drive followed the rugged coast through beautiful pine forests and small towns right on the coast. Went back into Mendocino again, which is a very quaint town with many well preserved 19th century buildings and houses, although the first 
time we visited it, all the buildings were white, they have introduced colour into the town which for me has spoiled it a little. This is where the TV series Murder She Wrote was filmed, continuing on the murder theme, we had to buy some gas, the price was $4.09 per gallon, prior to this the highest price we had paid was $2,79 say no more. We left Highway one at Fort Bragg and took the very scenic drive towards Willits through the mountains and the first of the redwood forests, (tallest trees in the world) spectacular sight. We found a nice place to park overnight amongst the tall trees. The following day we rejoined the 101 and drove through more forests. As we 
approached the coast, and Fortuna, it began to become built up, and finding a place to park overnight became a little more challenging, we parked in a car park at the rear of a Chinese restaurant, they were happy for us to stay there, in return we enjoyed a meal at a cost of $14.90, and had enough left over for the next evening, (cheaper than the California state camp site at $25.00 per night). Next morning had a quick walk around the town, including their local town park which we walked around the perimeter. On to Eureka, a fairly large town where we picked up AAA maps etc. Found another great overnighter on the old highway, high up on a hill and in a lush tropical setting overlooking a lake, the new highway (far enough away as to not to hear it) and the ocean as a backdrop. Through the valley at sunset we witnessed an amazing sight, the sun turned bright red lighting up the whole area to a really nice glow, truly a beautiful sunset, the sun was so bright and coming straight 
at us I couldn’t do justice with the camera. The following day we drove through more redwood forests, stopped to watch Elk grazing in the paddocks alongside the road. We had another pea soup fog for many miles driving through the mountains before reaching Crescent City. Overnighted at the local big W RV park, they have signs saying that it is not permitted , however they gave permission once asked, several other RVs were there also. This was our last night in California as tomorrow we will drive along the scenic drive into Oregon.Till next time Brian & Michele
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