Willits, California

October 10 and 11

Next stop:  Willits, a small northern California town barely off US 101 and 30 miles from the coast. We stayed at the Golden Rule RV Park south of town, which is owned by a nondenominatinal Christian church.  The campground was small, wooded, pretty, and very much out in the boonies. We liked it.

There were two newspaper boxes near the office so we bought our first hard copy newspapers in a while. The weekly, called the “The Willits News," had a front page article about a local museum exhibit called “Out of the Ashes,” commemorating the one year anniversary of wildfires that heavily damaged Mendocino and five other northern California counties in October 2017. That museum was in Willits so we made a visit.

This tiny road took us down a hill from US 101 to the Golden Rule Campground, where we stayed for two nights.  

We drove by this sign on our way to the campground. Ridgewood Ranch is where legendary race horse Seabiscuit trained, recuperated from a ruptured ligament he suffered in a race, and lived out his retirement.   When Seabiscuit retired in 1940, he was horse racing's all time leading money winner. The RV park where we stayed was once part of Ridgewood Ranch.

Our campsite site at the Golden Rule RV park. 

In the center of town is the "Willits Arch." Parts of the arch once stood in Reno, Neva, which donated it to Willits and got a new one. The town is named for a settler who arrived in 1857.

After the terrible fire last year, a Ukiah, CA, artist held a mosiac workshop for fire survivors.  Many of the "Out of the Ashes" items we saw were amazing creations made out of broken glass, melted metal, and other charred or melted objects from homes. The exhibit was at the Mendocino County Museum in Willits.

Jim looking at a display about nearby Buddhist retreat that was damaged in the October 2017 fire.

Another "Out of the Ashes" mosaic.

This statue of Seabiscuit, his owner Charles Howard, and a physician stands at the Frank Howard Hospital in Willits.  Frank's father, Charles Howard, was a benefactor of the hospital.  It was named after his 15-year-old son who died in a truck accident in 1926 at the family's nearby Ridgewood Ranch.  Howard was an auto magnet and owner of thoroughbred horses, included Seabiscuit.