Table of Contents Show
This week we made our way from our week 1 campground in San Benito to San Francisco North / Petaluma KOA in Petaluma, CA. We started off with a few mishaps during our drive and set-up which affected our mood throughout the week. We explored downtown Petaluma and visited with my old boss from Warner Bros (he’s now working for Lucasfilm). There are a few breweries in Petaluma so we took a day exploring them. We visited San Francisco and took a ghost tour. Finally, we drove out to Point Reyes National Seashore to finish up the week.
Newbie Mishaps
The day started smoothly. We packed up the RV with no issues and headed out on the road. The drive was going great until we misheard the GPS and took ONE wrong turn. Next thing you know we are sitting in 2+ hours of traffic to cross the Oakland bridge into San Francisco. If you have never been to San Francisco, it is not a place you want to bring a 40 ft trailer. We paid $20 to drive half-way to Treasure Island to then turn around precariously on the island and return the direction we came. We were then able to get on the correct freeway to head to Petaluma without heading into San Francisco. The second mishap was terrifying and most likely a result of sitting in traffic for so long for no reason other than being inattentive. We forgot to chock our tires while unhitching the trailer. This was compounded as an issue because we were on a slight decline to our rear. After a terrifying moment of the fifth wheel sliding backwards, it stopped on a set of Lynx levelers and prevented us from ending this lifestyle on only our second week. We finished setting up but the whole week felt uneasy. Oh, and the next day I dented and scratched the rear fender of the truck.
Petaluma
We moved on after our harrowing first night and decided to check out the town of Petaluma. We ate at Brewsters Beer Garden which had an amazing dog-friendly patio with fire pits and even an area for kids to play. The beer selection was great but the food selection was just ok. We met with my old boss from Warner Bros who lives in the area at Mi Pueblo. He said that it is the best Mexican food in the area and most like what we eat in Southern California. We finished off our exploration of Petaluma with a visit to LaLa’s Creamery for some ice cream made from scratch.
Breweries
Lagunitas is based in Petaluma so we stopped by for a little sumpin’ and took a brewery tour. It was interesting to hear how they started and to see what they are doing to be more green. They even have their own farm with cows and sheep that they feed their spent grain to after the brewing process. Any meat you get at the bar comes from the farm in a strange circle of life. Rae got into trouble for recording the tour so we don’t have a lot of footage but it is a cool and free way to spend an hour. We visited 101 North Brewing which is just a tap room but interesting to see the different sizes of breweries.
San Francisco and its Ghosts
We took the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco and found a place to park our Ram Duelly for the day. We caught an Uber to Fisherman’s Wharf for a bite of food. Since we have been to San Francisco multiple times over the last few years we have already explored the main tourist sites including Alcatraz Island. I’ve been there personally four or five times, even once at night. It is definitely worth seeing if you are in San Francisco.
After walking around Pier 39 and watching the seals fight for space on Dock K, we took another Uber to the ghost tour gathering area. There are several ghost tours in San Francisco but we decided on the San Francisco Ghost Hunt Walking Tour and were glad we did. We enjoy going on ghost tours to learn about an area’s history and hear dark tales. This tour was great and went into great detail about some of San Francisco’s almost forgotten heroines like Mary Ellen Pleasant. Give her a Google search if you don’t know who she is.
Point Reyes National Seashore
On our final day, we explored Point Reyes National Seashore. This amazing area has some great places to explore. Since we didn’t have much time we tried to hit only the main sites which are spread out. We visited the Point Reyes Shipwreck first and were surprised that there was no one else there.
After a quick photo shoot, we moved on to the Cyprus tunnel. This was more crowded and was proved difficult to get some clean shots because everyone was in each other’s way. Finally, we head down to the Point Reyes Lighthouse. Unfortunately, the Bay area fog was in full effect and we weren’t able to get any photographs here.
All in all, week 2 was a roller coaster week with a lot of ups and downs. Luckily, we continued our journey because week 3 was one of the books. Come with us as we explore Fern Canyon and get lost in the Redwoods.
