The road trip from H

The road trip from Hell...

What a last 2 days... Yesterday we left San Francisco fat dumb and happy. Then the trip from hell began...

Northbound on 101 ..early afternoon... Willits, CA. the highway signs light up all over the place. Highway 101 closed 70 miles north at Confusion Hill due to mud slides.. It could be closed for months according to service station attendant... He says if we take Hi-way 20 to Ft. Bragg we can bypass it. Off we go.. narrow windy road  Gas up at FT Bragg..While gassing up I decide to step over the fueling hose to get my coat out of the back of the van. My left foot obeys and steps neatly over the hose. On the other hand my right foot thought it would be great fun to get tangled on the hose and send me sprawling on to the pavement. Limp to the restroom muttering unkind epitaphs. Then hiway 1 for about 50 miles until it hooks back up with 101.On the way out jumps a deer.. massive swerving by Jacky the driver... 101 is closed right there where we come out at Legget ..seems the slide is just a little bit beyond where we come out. Cal Trans guy tells us they just cleaned it up and more slid down to replace it... Has no idea when it may open again.. they have hired it out to a private contractor to fix..

That attendant ... Gahhhh! Back to Willits to look for a motel.. guess what? All the motels are going for top dollar ..wonder why? They are all full to  except for the cowboy roach motel... I get a room. After I bring the stuff from the car in Jacky locks the multiple deadbolts so we will be safe from the Boogey Man. Meanwhile we decide on pizza for dinner but Jacky wants to stay in the hotel.. So we decide to call for one... No pizza delivery. OK so I will go hunt one down and kill it... nothing better than freshly killed pizza. The door won’t open.. one of the deadbolts won’t budge.... Finally I force it and am off for pizza. At the Pizza joint I inquire if they have thin crust as a choice... No they don’t but they just made the dough and it hasn’t risen much so it will probably be thin anyhow.

Next morning it is a complete deluge out there I swear you can see cats and dogs falling out of the sky. Call Cal Trans ..still closed. If we want to get to Oregon we must go back to Ukiah and cross to the San Joaquin Valley to the 5 and go to Ashland... or take the 299 to Eureka and then north on the 101.

Outside of Redding several hours later... Freeway signs are a flashin again... This time 5 is closed at Weed because of mud slides. OK so we go the 299.... toward Eureka ... We go through and are escorted through about 10 mud slides.. takes about 5 hours to go 70 miles. Lakes and rivers all on the rise everywhere and the same deer that jumped in front of us a 100 miles away ran all the way over here to do it again. A rock fell on the car shortly thereafter. Then we were stopped for 2 hours while they worked on another slide. However that was entertaining as by now everyone in our convoy had to “go” with it pouring down rain.. people would turn off their lights and stand in front of their cars for the pause that refreshes in pouring down rain.... Us included.

So we made it to Arcata and they closed down the 299. So we traveled over 300 miles today to go about 50 miles from where we were last night.....

Tomorrow we will leave this state behind and be in Oregon... Who knows what further adventures we will encounter..Maybe the Shadow knows buwhahhah...