Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - Bad GPS, Bad Day

Got up by 7:30, had a quick breakfast, then ran up to my cell phone spot to try to confirm our plans for the day. Turns out there is a new horse camp in Mendocino National Forest, despite the convictions of the woman I spoke to yesterday. I found it on www.horseandmuletrails.com, but wanted to get it confirmed, which I did this morning. I also called the Jackson State Forest, which is on the way, and learned much more about their horse camp as well. Both seemed suitable, so now we had choices. I looked up a few others, and called to get enough information to be confident if something changed our plans. Boy, was I in for a surprise today! Our plans changed big time. We followed the directions to the Mendocino Horse Camp provided by both Gracie (my Verizon GPS) and Google maps. There was only one road into the Mattole Beach, and at the crossroads, only two ways out, north and south. We came in from the north, which was really hairy, and now were had to go south. After many miles of windy, twisty, mostly paved roads we arrived in the tiny town of Honeydew, where we had a choice to go northeast through the Humboldt Redwood Forest to 101, or southeast, which was a direct route to Mendocino. All maps pointed southeast, so away we went. Within a few miles, we started climbing, and before long, the road turned from pavement to gravel, then suddenly went steeply uphill, then into a very sharp switchback with very soft ground. It was so bad, Hubby couldn't even make it up with the pickup truck hauling our little two-horse trailer. We knew we were in trouble. The road was very curvy before we got to that point, and the gravel made it quite slippery, so we knew we couldn't just back down the hill. The only saving grace was that there was another, rougher gravel road going straight out of the switchback, but was so steep I didn't have a chance. So Hubby managed, struggling, to turn around and go down the hill to a narrow pullout just below me. We unloaded the horses, unhooked the trailer, then attempted to use the pickup to help me up the hill like we did in Wyoming that time. No go. Part of the problem was that I had so overheated the engine that it didn't have any power, making me fear I had blown the engine, plus I had been low on gas, and with the nose pointed upward, the gas had fallen out of reach of the pump. So we used our container of generator gas to shore up my gas supply, and popped the hood hoping to help the engine cool. Hubby then drove the pickup back to Honeydew to see if he could find help. The nearest tow service was two hours away, but we figured if we could get a good four-wheel drive truck up there it might do the trick. Hubby returned relatively quickly with just the truck, Bob, who owned the little grocery/hardware store and gas station (the only center of commerce) in town. He hooked up, and was soon pulling me up the gravel road off to the side. After several attempts, I managed to back up the RV without falling into a ditch or off the side of the mountain sufficiently up the hill to turn around. Whew! Another close call! Filled our 5-gallon gas can with regular gas (all Bob had besides diesel), and went on our way. We tried to give him some money before we left, but being a true good semaritan, he refused all offers. All said and done, though, it took several hours, and as it was already going to be a long day, we had to skip Plan A (Mendocino) and Plan B (Jackson State Forest), and go to Plan C, Cuneo Horse Camp in the Humboldt Redwood Forest. We were avoiding that one because it was $35 a night, plus $8 for a second vehicle, and worse, less than 30 miles as the crow flies from where we started in the morning, but under the circumstances, we were just too tired and stressed out to carry on, particularly as there wasn't any place else we could find. Fortunately, it was right on the road we were on, and the camp host, Sharon, met us at the end of the driveway (she'd been alerted we were coming when I called for directions), and after some dickering, she agreed to give us the senior discount (a whopping $3 off), and not charge us for the extra vehicle. Apparently, it used to be $20/night, but the state raised it to $35 last year. We discovered later that that had caused a precipitous drop in attendance, so whatever revenue the state had hoped to gain actually resulted in a drop of income. Typical tax and spend thinking, I'm afraid. Anyway, Sharon helped us get settled in, we put the horses in corrals, wrote a check, was told dogs must be on a leash at all time because of baby deer and bears and other various wildlife they covet at this park. Then we were told our generator would have to be off by 8:00 pm and we couldn't put it on again until 10 am, a moot point as we would be long gone by then. Unfortunately, we had forgotten to turn the inverter off this morning, so the batteries didn't charge very much (we have an energy drain on the system somewhere, we haven't been able to find it yet), so by 8:30, in the middle of a movie, the batteries died. Hubby read for a while, I worked on my computer, but we were asleep by 9:30, exhausted from the stresses of the day.