Travels in a Tiny Tear-drop Trailer – Day 1 (cont.)
(The picture on the left above shows what the inside of the trailer looks like in the website photo. The one on the right shows the inside of the trailer in actual use.)
An hour after arrival at Valley of the Rogue State Park, we finally have the trailer reasonably stationed in its space, with the electricity hooked up. My water-repellent wind-breaker is soaked through, and as it is after 9PM, we decide to forego cooking a hot meal and simply make a meal of cheese, fruit, and crackers, with some good red wine, and chocolate for dessert. No worries about the rain, Sis declares, as she has also rented a little tent which can be attached to the trailer door, giving us a dry place to sit while we eat.
The comprehensive directions that come with the trailer suggest that one should practice setting up the tent attachment in advance so you know how it all fits together. We have not done that. Fortunately we both have head lamps, so we take the chairs out of the trailer and set them aside, take the tent out, and begin to assemble it in the dark and rain, with me reading the directions , and the two of us fitting poles into holes as seems most reasonable. A half-hour or so later, the tent is up, attached to the trailer, and we have secured the rain fly. It’s then we discover that the chair bags are not water-proof, and after a half-hour of sitting out in driving rain, the chairs inside their bags are sopping wet.
Well, so are we by that time, so we set our chairs and little table up inside the tent, arrange some plastic trash bags on the sodden chairs, and drown our soggy sorrows in wine. I even manage to forgive Sis for having forgotten to bring the chocolate. We hang our wet clothes on every possible protuberance inside the trailer, and prepare for bed. We find the mis-placed purse! Sis worries about having to get up in the night to get to the rest room, so she carefully sets her shoes just outside the trailer door inside the tent so that she can slip them on if needed.
And so to bed.
Will the rain ever stop? Will Sis be able to find her shoes in the dark? Will we get a hot breakfast? Stay tuned!
The weather was perfect: warm, no fog or wind, as we left Hearst Castle.
Further up the road there was an even bigger slide, with an obviously temporary one-lane road perched nervously across the new ground. But it was fascinating to watch the big diggers roaming and scooping atop huge mounds of dirt and stone. And that road remains a marvel of impossible engineering, spectacular vistas, and a maddening plodding pace behind the inevitable road boulder, often a “Rent-Me-RV” whose first-time RV driver is scared to death of his rig and the road. And they won’t pull out to let the long line of vehicles behind them to pass, which is the law, or, if it isn’t, there oughta be.
We took the remains of a bottle of local Pinot Noir back to our balcony to finish off the evening with the complimentary chocolate chip cookies from our check- in desk. We sat on our balcony again to watch the crescent moon setting near where the sun had set before our dinner. Suddenly stars! The Milky Way! D even saw a shooting star. Only one spotlight shining on the entry sign for our hotel spoiled the dark sky.
We got the fog we had hoped for on our second day at Point Reyes. Since we had part of the area south of our home base on our 
We fled the South Bay expecting a foggy few days on the Marin coast. To our surprise, the fog held off on our arrival, so we took advantage of the sunshine before we even checked into our lodgings. Our first stop was the Visitors Center at 
The Earthquake trail follows the natural escarpment where the San Andreas Fault skirts the edges of the California coastline before disappearing into the sea towards Alaska. It’s a shady stroll through pastureland and underneath gian twisted bay trees. Along the trail are interpretive placards explaining earthquake geology, plate tectonics, and the effect of the Fault on California geology. A line of blue posts marking the center line of the fault marches along the ridge above the trail. The high point of the walk is a point where two halves of a fence have been offset by almost 15 feet – the result of the ground movement in 1907, when action on the Fault caused the disastrous San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.
I had read the story, and was eager to see the ponies. Unfortunately, on this day the ponies were as elusive as moose in Maine from a tourist bus. We saw some deer, and some water birds, but nothing equine. Finally, as we were ready to turn back, we spotted a pair in the far distance on the other side of an inlet. (Thank goodness for telephoto lenses) One was chestnut, the other was the classic pinto as in 
We had planned to leave at 7AM for 
With a sigh of relief, I spot a privy decorated with a cowboy mural down a little side road. The Visitors’ Center is 17 miles further on. The gravel road is bordered with ocotillo (long slender bare dead-looking sticks with flames of bright red flowers blooming at the tips) and Spanish bayonet (giant pompons of green narrow leaves cupping a torch of white and pinkish downward-facing blooms) and lots of bare earth where the cattle have grazed and platinum blonde grasses where they have not.
After about an hour of jouncing over mostly-pretty-good gravel road, we get to the Visitor’s Center, a plain building with a minimal gift shop and a sign saying “Welcome to the Other Side of Nowhere.” The center also offers an up-to-date set of rest rooms with cool running water, and a friendly ranger who supplies us with trails and suggestions. We decide to eat our lunch at the lone picnic table under the lone bit of shade, and then head out on the Horse-Trap Trail that promises a view out over the central interior of the park, and possible encounters with local wildlife.
Allyson Johnson 