I planned, I researched and I searched the net. Then I went and it was ten times better than I thought it would have. I spent two weeks moving up and down the coastal highway. The sights were to be loved and remembered, the videos to always look at, new details to find with each viewing. I met a man in Jenna who lived in Sacramento who hadn't been to the coast since he was a boy. We were about the same age and I thought of all the places I had been since I began to drive and I thought what could have anchored someone in one spot for so long must have been very absorbing and consuming. The first place on the schedule was St. Helena and that was a hard place to find from Sacramento without any local maps and ended up driving in the wrong direction the first two or three hours and then found the direction and still ended up driving over the mountains on 128 to 29 and that was an experience. The next day I drove over the mountains again, this time to Glen Ellen where Jack London State Park was. That was another headache finding even with detailed driving directions. On the way back I decided to stay on the main highway and found out I should have taken the mountain road back and cut my travel time to a third. After that my next destination was Clearlake. That was the most winding road of the whole trip from Calistoga to Clearlake and probably the biggest elevation change too. I looked at property in Clearlake and all around it. I blew into town late on the first day I was there most of the next and I toured a couple of houses and tracked down several that were in the MLS listings. I was definitely not impressed with the character of the old commence center except for one restaurant that looked like it had something happening.
California dreaming, part 2
Posted 09-06-2010 at 10:59 AM by Profiler
Most of the neighborhoods I drove through were in extremely poor condition. There didn't seem to be any type of civil code enforcement from the appearance of the homes and they had a total lack of any spirit at all. There were a few roses in the wilderness but they definitely were the minority. Everyone that worked there I spoke to didn't live in town and hadn't been there very long. I could see that the place reminded me of the isolated coal towns in Kentucky when I was there. The visual difference between the town and surrounding mountains was a sharp contrast. All I could think about was how great it would be to have the vette when I was driving the surrounding roads of Lake County and passing the walnut and fruit groves on the long stretches of level ground and then into the roads winding through the mountain passes to Williams. I drove back the next day and checked more homes and I found a place the third time I was there carved out of a walnut grove that still had abut ten walnut trees left on the property but I got the impression they were older tress that weren't producing very many nuts anymore. In the end the place was too dry and dusty. Someone with pulmanary problems would be sickened by the atmosphere I no longer wanted to live there.
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