We took off in late July, 1996. I remember that first day out even now, 18 months later. I was really lonely and forlorn. The only reasons I took off were because I'd said I would and because there was nothing else to do. I didn't have that sense of excitement which normally accompanies the beginning of a trip. The campground, near Santa Rosa, was hot and dry, with live oak, much like the town I'd just left.

Adding to the disappointment, I actually had an accident in the motorhome on that first day out. Traveling through the old, historic district of a town in Marin County, I'd apparently passed so close to a parked car on those narrow streets that I'd brushed its rearview mirror off. Though I was unaware of the event, I was fortuitously (for the driver of the parked car) followed by a meter maid, who duly pulled me over and cited me. Quite an inauspicious start.

Our first stop was the Golden Gate Bridge. For those of you outside the area, it bridges San Francisco on the south and Marin County on the north. I headed up the California coast through Marin, Mendocino, Sonoma and Humboldt counties over the next five days. California receives almost all its rain in the winter and spring, but coastal California is cool and green even in the summer. Just a few miles inland, it can be 15 or 20 degrees warmer.

North coastal California is redwood country. Besides being beautiful, however, it's home to some of the tackiest tourist attractions around, all of them centering around redwoods which have been carved to varying degrees.