Take Me Home, Winding Road

Aug 15 – Sept 7: Monte Rio, CA

Now that we’ve finally caught up on all those overdue quarterly reports, we can bring you up to date on more recent adventures – notably, our 3-week housesitting gig in Monte Rio, CA.

Last summer, when we envisioned what our travels would look like in 2024, we figured we’d be more focused on the east coast, given that we’d spent most of 2023 in the western states. But then, sometime in September, we got a text from Karen – the owner of the beloved alpacas and porch pig (among many others!) that we cared for last April. She wanted to know if we’d have any interest in coming back for 3-4 weeks in Aug-Sept 2024. What an honor to be invited back! But, wow, what a different plan that would be for this year. We told her we’d have to give it some careful thought … so we did.

Ultimately, we realized that this would give us a great opportunity to spend more time on the actual coast (which we really didn’t do last year – we were concentrated on points more inland), have more time with our music pals in Portland, get really serious about those McMenamin’s passport stamps, and have more time with this quirky menagerie we had grown fond of last spring.

The three weeks in coastal California were central to our entire plan this year – both in terms of destination as well as timing. We’re halfway through our 6 months on the road, and this was literally our turnaround point. When we left Monte Rio on Sept 7, we pointed the Bettiemobile east and started our 3-month return journey.

Monte Rio is a cute, TINY town on the Russian River, about halfway between Santa Rosa and the Pacific coast. The title of this post comes from the fact that all the roads in this area were routed around riverways, big redwoods, or sometimes it would seem just to add more curves.

Yes, it is THE Russian River familiar to wine-lovers. Our drives to and around Monte Rio took us past several wineries of note, and let me tell ya, the grapes are in season! So many heavy-laden vines!

We enjoyed many a bottle of the local juice, but we didn’t do any official “tastings.” To be honest, we didn’t do much exploring at all. Say what you will, chastise us all you want, but Karen’s house and backyard provided the respite we were craving. We did spend some time in the nearby towns of Guerneville, Duncans Mills, and Occidental, plus we made a quick day trip to the historic neighborhood of Santa Rosa. But mostly we enjoyed the animals, cooled down from the hot days in the unheated backyard pool (then warmed up again in the hot tub), made nice dinners, unpacked the camper and cleaned everything up, caught up on work and TV shows, and … just … chilled.