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This leg of our journey required us to do some backtracking, and for those of you who know me you know I avoid going the same way twice if I can help it. I’d just as soon go a different way and see something new, but this time we were traveling at night so I wouldn’t have been able to see the scenery anyway. Another reason I dislike backtracking—especially in the RV—is the price of gas; seems like we should always be moving forward. But since there was no other way for us to get from Windsor to Sacramento, back down Hwy 101 we went.

Our first stop involved filling the RV’s gas tank, no small matter for us. First because our rig is 34’ long plus a tow car, and second, the aforementioned gas prices. Thankfully, the gas station was quiet that night; it is much less stressful to maneuver in and out when there aren’t a bunch of cars zooming around. We had already checked out the station earlier in the day and the roof was plenty tall enough for us to fit under, one of a few key considerations. I hopped out, credit card in hand to start the lengthy process of gassing up, but the pump wouldn’t take my card. Instead it instructed me to select a grade and start pumping.

Forty dollars later the pump shut off and printed a receipt. Slightly confused I walked inside and gave the cashier my card explaining what had happened and that I wanted to fill up. He looked at me oddly, and took care of it. It wasn’t until we were a ways down the road that I did the math and realized that the $40 had not been charged to our card. The receipt said “Prepaid. Thank you.” Either the pump malfunctioned or someone had treated us to a random act of kindness. We prefer to think the latter since it makes us feel good; and yes, we’ll pay it forward.

Just south of Novato we left Hwy 101 and headed east on SR 37 toward Sacramento. The road skirts the north edge of San Pablo Bay, and at times there was water lapping the roadbed on both sides. Not a road to travel during flood times, I’m sure. We were a bit disappointed that it was dark since it was probably a gorgeous drive filled with all manner of birdlife. Soon our quiet road joined up with I-80 and we didn’t have much longer before stopping for the night in the tiny hamlet of Dixon. There we found a brightly-lit Wal-Mart, and tucking ourselves into a far corner of the parking lot, we soon fell asleep.

The next morning dawned warm and sunny, it promised to be a wonderful day. After making sure the cats would be comfortable for the day we drove to Josiah and Heidi’s house. After almost two years of RVing our cats have a routine which mostly involves sleeping. We have often returned after several hours and found the cats napping in exactly the same spots as when we’d left. Rough life, eh?

We spent a few minutes getting reacquainted; we hadn’t seen Josiah, Heidi, and their two kids since just after the first of the year. Amazing how much Arwyn and Malachi have grown since then! Unfortunately, they are still too young for rafting so we left them in the capable hands of a friend. After Lance and Josiah loaded up the raft and our necessary supplies we were off. Between Lance and myself we’ve only been rafting a handful of times, so we were really excited about the trip. Josiah and Heidi like to raft so much that they bought their own raft, which was great because if we had paid for a rafting trip it would’ve been over $100 a person! Yikes!

We drove both cars up into the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, leaving one at the take-out and driving up in the other one to our put-in spot. A bit of background for you: the mountains were named by the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542. He never set foot in them, he just saw them from afar and their white-topped peaks earned them the Spanish name for “snowy range.” The area remained the undisturbed home of the Paiute and Sierra Miwok tribes until 1844 when John Charles Frémont and Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson explored the area. The men had met two years earlier when Frémont hired Carson to guide his expedition of the Oregon Trail. Frémont was certainly qualified to lead that trip and the ensuing expeditions of the Oregon Territory and Great Basin and Sierra Mountains, but it helped that his father-in-law, Senator Thomas Hart Benton was a strong proponent of “Manifest Destiny.”

On that trip in 1844 Frémont became the first non-indigenous person to see Lake Tahoe. Frémont surely didn’t know it at the time but he was gazing down upon the second deepest lake in the U.S., after Crater Lake. The 400 mile long mountain range is home to another superlative, the tallest peak in the lower 48 states, Mt. Whitney (14,505’). The peak was named in honor of Josiah Whitney, an early geologist in California.

Speaking of Josiahs. Our friend Josiah served as our captain and after a safety speech and brief training session we put our paddles in the water and pushed out into the current on the Middle Fork of the American River. The American has its headwaters up in the Sierra Nevadas, winding down through rugged canyons before leveling out and eventually joining the Sacramento River. The river’s main claim to fame is as the site of the California Gold Rush. Nearby on the South Fork, James W. Marshall discovered the treasure while working at John Sutter’s sawmill.

The year was 1848 when Marshall and Sutter verified Marshall’s shiny stones to be high grade gold. Surprisingly, Sutter did not welcome the news, he predicted that the gold would ruin him, and it turned out he was right. News of the find spread across the globe and people began flocking to the area by the thousands. The 49ers trampled Sutter’s fields, stole his cattle, and squatted on his land, all of which he was powerless to stop. Sutter died penniless. Marshall, the original discoverer suffered a similar fate. When we visited the Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas we learned that the man who discovered those shiny gemstones also later died completely broke. Mental note to self: scratch discovering rare, semi-precious, or valuable, minerals and stones off my to-do list.

Now where were we? Ah yes, floating lazily down the Middle Fork. Ahead of us were several commercial rafting companies with rafts full of adventurers. One boat was full of Japanese tourists and though they spoke very little English, it was easy to see that they were having a good time. Josiah ran the river just a few weeks before so he was pretty comfortable with the flow and had a good read on the rapids. Yes, there were some rapids. Yippee! We all ended up wet, and once in a steep drop I was washed right off my seat and into the center of the raft. I ended up with a tremendous amount of water up my nose and in my right ear but, wow, was that ever fun!

During the calm sections we took turns swimming, snacking, or just watching the Common Mergansers that shared the river with us. There were moments that I really wished I had my camera with me, but then we’d hit a gusher and I was glad I didn’t. It was such a gorgeous day, sunny and warm yet not boiling hot. Plus we had a good time catching up on each other’s lives. Before we knew it we floated up to our take-out spot. The river was still flowing nicely so it was an easy out. Josiah had warned us that when Folsom Lake backs up into the canyon the last stretch can be exhausting since you have to paddle the whole way. After deflating the raft and changing into dry clothes we drove back up to fetch the other car. By then we were all starving and we couldn’t wait to get to Zelda’s.

Josiah introduced Lance to Zelda’s many years ago and now it is part of our tradition: when we are in Sac Town we eat at Zelda’s. Most people have a love-hate relationship with the place and I can understand why. It is small and dark (reminds me of a Wisconsin tavern), it is always busy, and the servers are less than sweet. But the pizza—it’s so different, it’s so delicious! Anyway, it was late at night by the time we finished and finally said our goodbyes. The kids had been so good all throughout dinner but they were tired. Come to think of it, we were tired too. Having fun can be hard work!

Sunday morning we hopped on I-5 and left the fertile Sacramento Valley behind. Stopping for a late lunch found us dwarfed by tall and snowy Mt. Shasta. A bit further up at the town of Weed we turned off Interstate 5 onto Hwy 97. From what we could tell Weed is a cute little town with a very strange name. We were mildly amused to see a line of young men taking pictures of the “Welcome to Weed” sign. Hwy 97 took us through the Klamath Basin to our destination of Klamath Falls, Oregon. All along the road were ponds, lakes, and marshes filled with thousands of various waterfowl. In a fallow potato field we swear we saw some Bald Eagles but we couldn’t be sure. The next week promised to be fun!

Photos: View the photographs from our American River Adventure.

Notes: We left Sonoma Valley on 05/09/08, enjoyed a day of whitewater Rafting on the American River on 05/10/08, and traveled to Klamath Falls on 05/11/08.