Continuing from last night, we are camped out in the parking lot of Thurston Honda in Ukiah. As described, car has an “electrical” problem. More like a Ghost in the Machine. I just hope they can repair it easily. And I expensively too. We are praying. It’s about 630 and we will be up soon. Gonna move all our gear from the Fit into the trailer and go pick up a rental car at Hertz. And I hope the reservation clerk is correct and it has a tow hitch. All these things happen and it’s a big improvement. Huge. We will see.
Biggest problem with camping in a parking lot: no restrooms. Last night I pointed that out to the cop who helped us. She says, the bathroom is right there and points at three large bushes. Slight smile, no laughing. I said looks good for me, tough on the girl. She says that’s problematic. I’ve never had a cop suggest public urination. Though still most helpful CHP ever. And no ticket. Time to get up.
Got all the gear moved. Took five minutes. After we were done we decided to sit in the broken car in the service lane. People have started to arrive, it’s close to seven. A very nice guy just came by, told us we were a bit early. I said that ok, been here all night and he said “is that your trailer?”. Did not know it was obvious. Told him we had spent the night. He said someone would arrive soon. A couple minutes later he came back and offered up the restroom inside the building. Nice people here. He said he noticed that Marika’s eyes were bulging out of her head. Probably true.
The service manager, Chris, opened early to get my car in the shop. He thinks it’s the alternator. I said fix it. He says, you need an air bag. Thats recall, I said fix it. He says I’m due for 100k service. I said fix it. I gotta stop saying that.
Fred, the shuttle guy, drove us to Hertz. Turns out they lied. No vehicles with tow hitch at all. We got a small Jeep SUV. Drive back to Honda, stopping for coffee at a very busy local coffee shop (no Starbucks here) and transferred all the gear to the Jeep. Then I put the wheel locks and hitch lock on the trailer. Now we are gonna buy a tent. 
Yes, I went to Wally World. Nothing else was open. A $25 tent. I may leave it at our last campsite. Then we are off!! Finally. No. Gas first. Hertz gave me only 1/4 tank. Now we are off!! Bright and early at 930. Crap.
Btw, Arco sells more than gas. Breakfast!!
We headed for the coast. North on 101 about 120 miles to the Honeydew turnoff. The country up here off 101 is very scenic and beautiful. The drive is never boring like it is in Nebraska and Ohio.
Stopped for gas at some random place near the sign says ” world famous log house (in a log)”. There were about 3 other “world famous” attractions right around one was a Bigfoot place. I guess everyone needs to make money. I did not stop at any.
So I am driving a rental car. As u know. I was on 101 cruising downhill, not paying attention and a CHP stopped me. Officer J Williams. You know the drill, sir do u know why I stopped u? No. Sir do you know how fast you were driving? Not reallly paying attention, this is a rental. Always different than your own. Sir I clocked you at 80 mph. Then it happened. He asked, “what are you doing up here” and fifteen minutes later of explanation of our vacay including car trouble etc the officer says, should I give you a warning or a citation? Winner. Winner. I said, with the car repair I think I have been punished enough. He said, warning it is. He issued a warning. That’s the bomb. I always drive slow. Even god knew I did not deserve it. Off to Mattole. We pulled off at the Honeydew exit.
The first six miles of driving is through an old growth redwood forest. 
After that six miles is 25 more to the coast about an hour and a half of the shittiest road in America. Just sayin. Up. Down. Halt. Go. Washed out! Watch out! Nice.
Some beauty.
Then we are suddenly there.
The campsites here at Mattole campground are rustic. Rustic is a code word for primitive. They have latrines also called pit toilets. No potable water. No services of any kind. Each site does have a picnic table. That’s handy. We secured a nice site, probably the least windy of all. That’s important since our trailer is in Ukiah parked at the Honda dealer. And we have to tent it.
We set up camp, roughly, so as to establish ownership of the site. So we put up the tent to scare off late comers.l
Then we headed up the hill in search of cell signal. After sometime we gave that up. There is none. Whenever we came near a house, not many out here, we looked for unlocked wifi. No luck. Got to the hamlet of Petrolia. Guess what? There was a pay phone. 
Does anyone remember those? I did a double take and I drove by it and had to turn around and go back. Never thought I would ever see one or use one again. But I did. It worked. Had to call the operator because it would not take my credit card. The operator says “did you try dialing direct?” which means no charge. It worked. Weird. Anyhow, had to call the Honda dealer and find out what’s wrong. As predicted by service manager Chris at Thurston Honda, the alternator was toast. No problem, just pay them $912 and we are good. Ouch. F***. He did do the recall replacement of the air bag. I told him to skip the major service he suggested. Another pound of flesh I don’t have to give.
Stopped at the Petrolia market and got some burger and sausage. For dinner. Back to the beach. Finish set up of camp. Gonna head out on a long walk. It’s actually quite cold here, wear a jacket cold. And it’s 100 back home.
Long walk but not far enough to see around the end of Punta Gorda (big point). The abandoned lighthouse is a mile beyond the point. We never got far enough to see it in the distance. IMG_3019
We are just sitting here at camp soaking up the last bit of sunshine. Not helped by the never ending cooling of the wind. I may have to go lie down in the tent. But once I lie down I may fall asleep. I only got four hours of sleep last night. Sleeping in a trailer in a parking lot of the car repair place is not conducive to sleep.
We made dinner. Chili dogs a la Lost Coast. 
. We managed to skip lunch today by accident. Busy getting moving, finally, and going down the road. We were behind on time. So we ate snacks instead of stopping for lunch. This made our dinner extra good and I noticed we were both quite hungry. It was tasty and Marika agrees. Our visitor 
agreed as well. Very old dog showed up at dinner time so we fed her. She is obviously quite old but very sweet and she hung out for quite some time. At least until Marika helped her leave to find her people.
Cleaned up dinner dishes and all put away. We are gonna be pioneer people and go to bed with the sun. That’s 8 pm to you non pioneers.
Before retiring, just as our pioneer forebears did, we ate little chocolate donuts for dessert. And we are gonna go watch the sun go down from the beach. 
