Pacific Northwest - Day 1 - SF to Klamath, CA

We left San Francisco late Saturday morning, packed up the Thule on top of the Mini, threw the doggy in the back hatch, and headed for Oregon. Planning to check out a plethora of breweries in the Pacific Northwest, we decided to grab lunch at Russian River Brewing just an hour or so north of SF in Santa Rosa. Scott says this is supposed to be one of the top breweries in the country, famous for their Blind Pig/Pliny the Elder/Younger IPAs and their Belgians. We tasted all 16 of their beers on tap, and then hopped back on the 101.

Buster getting comfy in the back of the mini for the long ride ahead.

Russian River Brewing- list of the beers on tap

Here is the sampler at Russian River Brewery. 16 2oz tasters. If you count, one is missing.. that one is likely in Scott's fist.

We drove for a half dozen hours through semi-scenic, scarcely populated California, and stopped for dinner at Eel River, another brewery/grill a little south of Eureka famous for their Organic beer and down home food. With stomachs full and another tasting downed, we jumped back on the road to make it to our campsite in Klamath.

Eel River Brewery for dinner. The mushroom and brie burger was pretty amazing. What else was amazing- another dark silver mini parked right in front!

Eel River Brewing. Our second tasting of the trip. Acai berry wheat is one of there most famous and most distributed beers. We thought the beers were drinkable but not outstanding.

Klamath Campers Corral was like fake camping - the grounds were beatifully groomed with a gym, pizza parlor, and game room on site. We picked a spot next on the edge of the woods to make our experience more like real camping. Just as we start to set up camp we happened to see a black bear scavenging the fish cleaning station 50 yards away. Cat thought it was a big dog at first, but Buster knew otherwise. An ok night sleep ended with buster poking a hole in the tent with his nose trying to chase yet another wild animal.

Here Buster (and Cat) watch Scott show off his eagle scout talent setting up the tent.

And this is where Cat decided the tent's final resting place would be for the night..

The big bad black bear in the background (courtesy of Scott's iPhone).