October 15, 2012

Sonoma County Fairgrounds RV Park

Santa Rosa, CA

I had kept flip-flopping whether or not I wanted to go to San Francisco.  I didn’t really make up my mind until late Sunday night so I didn’t do as much research as I usually do when looking for our next location.  I found a place called the Wine Country RV Park located in Rohnert Park.  It sounded nice and the price was reasonable at $24.50 a night with Passport America discount.  At only 45 miles outside San Francisco it would have made a good base to do sightseeing in the city.

We got up early and were ready to leave Sycamore Grove Campground by 9.  The campground was great but it didn’t have a dump station so we went to a nearby RV Camp where we could use one of their empty sites to dump for a $10 fee.  We had to be done before 10am as they were expecting a large group to arrive.  We dumped the tanks and were on our way by 9:30. 

I called the Wine Country RV Park to ask if they had availability for that evening and was told that they were totally booked up.  I hadn’t made a plan B! OOPS.  I had inquired if they knew of any other places that I could call and was told I should try the Fairgrounds.  When I called the Fairgrounds they said they had over 160 sites and never were full so we could have a site if we wanted it. 

I have to admit I wasn’t thrilled with the RV Park when we arrived.  It is basically a parking lot with hook-ups.  They do accept Passport America but only for one night and we wanted to stay at least two nights.  (The gentleman at the Wine Country RV Camp had said they might have an opening on Wednesday).  So it ended up costing us $55.00 for two nights (that included paying a fee for my car). 

 

After we were set up we took a ride to the Wine Country RV Park to check it out.  When we got there we were relieved that they hadn’t had availability as the road leading into the park was very curvy and narrow and the sites were so close together I’m not sure we would have been able to open our slides. 

After leaving the Wine Country RV Park we continued south to the city of Petaluma.

 It is a cute city with plenty of shops and restaurants to choose from. 

 Unfortunately by the time we got there most of the shops were already closed.  We looked at the menus from several restaurants and most were out of our budget.  We finally ended up eating at a place called McNear’s Saloon and Mystic Theatre. 

  They offer many different types of burgers that are ½ pound with the option of doubling the meat for only $3.00 more.  So we shared one burger (which still cost over $19.00 with tax and a tip).  It came with sweet potato fries and was absolutely delicious.  We walked around the town for a bit after dinner and went home as we were both exhausted and planned on getting up early in the morning for our trip into the city.

Looking at a visitor’s guide to Sonoma I discovered there were so many little towns I would have liked to explore but the RV park fees are just too expensive so unfortunately we will only spend a couple of days in the area. 

When we go home we discovered that we could only receive two stations, both Spanish with no subtitles.  Before leaving Florida, in anticipation of staying in places with no reception, I had recorded to disc several movies and shows.  We watched one of the discs’s and then called it a night.