Bodega Dunes (5)

So glad we went out! Richard really had to hustle to make this weekend happen, but he pulled it off. After our last excursion, as we were getting Dory back up the driveway, I noticed one of the tires did not look right. Like dangerously not right. Like I think we were lucky to have made it home without a blowout. So Richard spent the week doing research, calling about inventory, shipping times, calling local tire places, all of it. Impressively, he was able to get two new trailer tires put onto our rims and put them back on Dory, lugs tight and ready to roll, all by Friday. We are both extremely thankful we didn’t have to deal with changing a tire on top of the road to Fremont Peak. According to the tire guy, something delaminated on the inside, as in, the tire failed before its time. For our part, we really do not care about getting our “money’s worth” on tire longevity. We’d rather buy new tires frequently rather than ever ever have to deal with a blowout on the road. We have all the necessary parts and tools if need be, but yikes that would be no fun.

Dory and her new shoes were ready to roll on Friday, but something was keeping her from moving when we commenced launching procedures. It usually only takes a medium sized push to get her rolling, but this time, even an outright shove was not moving her. Something was up. Of course the first thing we did was to make sure she was not still on top of a jack, or jack stand, or that she was still chocked. Seems obvious, but worth checking. Nope, not it. So we figured it had to be that the brakes were engaged. We have an emergency brake safety cable installed, but it didn’t look as though it had been pulled or tripped. We’ve never done anything with it, so we weren’t even really sure how to test it. But we weren’t going anywhere without figuring this out, so Richard yanked the pin out and then pushed it back in. Sure enough, he heard a little click and her wheels were rolling again. We figure somehow in the tire changing process, some wire must have triggered the brakes to lock. Glad we got that sorted.

Home was forecast to be in the 90s, but it could not have been more lovely on the coast. Blue skies, temps in the 80s, what a glorious weekend. Richard rode for a while and I drove up the coast to meet him in Duncans Mills. On our way back south, we stopped at Goat’s Rock and hung out on the beach a little, trying to avoid the other fifty thousand people who had the same idea. The whole coast was really packed with Californians avoiding the inland heat. Richard was looking forward to stopping for a scone at Wild Flour Bakery, but he said the crowd made it way too Covidy to be worth it.

We planned to grab a picnic dinner from Pelican Plaza Market and Deli to take with us to the beach. We even called at 3 to ask how late we could order from the deli. The person on the phone said 6. We got there at 4 and the deli was closed. That’s a PR fail there. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, maybe there were so many people in that day, they ran out of food. It certainly seemed so because there was not much left in the case. I settled on a couple of pasta salads to go and some cookies. Oh also, I put a margarita to go into a thermos, so really, dinner food was not the most important item on the menu.

We did our favorite trail down the Pinnacle Gulch Trail to the tide pools. Low tide coincided perfectly with the sunset and we were super smart by parking our car at the exit point, on the street at the top of Shorttail Gulch Trail. That way, after having a margarita and walking back up a thousand feet, the car would be right there. We are sunset professionals and we do not mess around.

Sunday we planned to grab crab cakes for lunch at Spud Point Crab Co. We needed to go that way anyway to use the dump at Westside Campground because the dump at Bodega Dunes is closed for some reason. Driving past, we saw a loooong line of people who were kind of sort of distancing. But yeah, there were a lot of them. So we were faced with an existential crisis of trying to decide whether Spud Point crab cakes were worth risking possible death. When that did not provide a clear answer, we instead asked whether crab cakes were worth risking our daughter’s death. To that, we had to answer no. Dammit. Covid sucks. No crab cakes for us.

Instead, we had chips and salsa for lunch in Dory, parked in the day use area, and actively debated whether I should try to get my boat in the water, and if not, why not. Cutting to the chase: I did not. But also, didn’t need to. The weekend was perfect just as it was.

Total miles: 89.7, 15.0 mpg, 2 hours 35 min. Site 60. Great solar, no hookups. Dump closed. Dumped at Westside for $7. Good dump there. Pretty good LTE for both from the site, but service drops in and out in that area.