Miles Whitmore / ascii@dod.net / Healdsburg, California / July 2, 2003
This past weekend, a friend of mine invited me to come up to the Lake Pillsbury / Eel River area to go swimming and camp for the night. Having nothing better to do, I got some supplies together, threw them in the trunk, grabbed a map and hit the road. It is in the high 90s when I set out with a careful eye on the temperature gauge. I have the windows rolled down and the wind vents open. Who needs air conditioning? As I pass through Healdsburg and then Geyserville on California Route 101, I began to feel good about getting out of the house and away from computers and work and all the stuff that makes my life boring. It is just me and my simple machine going out into the wilderness.
It is now around 6 pm, so I stop in Ukiah for some quick food. Hopped back on the 101 for a short time and then get off at the highway 20 exit towards lake country. After a pretty steep grade and a few minutes, I was turning onto Potter Valley Road. Once I reach the incredibly small town of Potter Valley, I stop at the corner store to pick up some more water and a little bit of beer. This is basically the last outpost of civilization for a little while. The climb out of Potter Valley is incredibly steep and I have to start out in first, then the rest is 2nd gear, tractor style. Once I reach the top, I opt to take the twisty and steep way down as it will be much more fun...and, it is. I get to the bottom and cross the bridge over the beautiful Eel River and then I take the right hand split of the road and it turns to dirt. This I did not know about. Most sane people driving a 43 year old car probably would have turned around at this point but I forged on because I did not feel like going home after driving around 80 miles to get to this point. The dirt road just kept going and going and the grades got steeper and the road got fairly rough at points, but overall, it was no worse than your typical fire access type road in California.
After about another 2 hours of driving on crazy, but incredibly beautiful, dirt roads in the middle of nowhere, I reached Bloody Rock Trail, where I was headed. My friend's cars were already here as they had left much earlier in the day. I locked up the car, chocked the wheel because my emergency brake cable had just broken the other day, and set off down the trail. When I arrived at Bloody Rock, it was still pretty light out but when I entered the forest before the river, it was basically pitch black with no moon. I had a flashlight with me, so I kept it on for a little bit, but decided that it would be best not to get lost in the woods where I had never been before, and hightailed it back to my car for the night. Out where I was, I could get exactly one FM station on the Grundig radio that I like to carry with me, so I spent the night listening to cheesy '70s / '80s rock and watching the stars from the front seat of the 190. It was a most relaxing evening indeed. To those who have never slept in a Ponton, it is ...umm... interesting. I think the front seat fully reclined and with it adjusted all the way back, it offered the most "comfort".
In the morning, I got up and made my way down the trail, met my friends, went swimming and got heading home by 1pm. Coming back was even more beautiful as I was not in a hurry, and I could go even slower. All the dirt road travel was between 15 and 30 mph. The trip home was pretty uneventful except for a stop at the Real Goods Compound in Hopland (back on Route 101 again) to see if they had anything neat. They did, but I was not in a spending money sort of mood at this point. Once I was home, I had covered about (I am guessing) around 230 miles and I had used a half tank of fuel.
I am planning on going back and exploring the many fire roads on my Honda Trail 90 as it will be a little better suited to the area than the 190 Ponton. I must say that the 190 performed flawlessly handing the dirt and getting pretty good traction up the many steep and somewhat rocky roads. It made me want to do rallye racing with the old car.
Miles Whitmore
July 2, 2003
1960 Mercedes-Benz Type 190Db
1980 Mercedes-Benz Type 300TD
© www.mbzponton.org / July 2, 2003