Signs  

At this time we live in the East Bay...San Pablo, right next to the city of Richmond, CA. We're right on San Pablo Bay, directly across the bay from San Rafael.
We had a short period of homelessness, due to the short sale of the house we lived in, and we trucked on over to San Rafael. Man, I love it over there. My advice to anyone who is forced on to the steets...schlepp on over to Marin. They have a large community of rich, guilty liberals who have demanded and gotten good programs for the homeless. I, myself, am a poor liberal...the only guilt in me is residue from a Catholic upbringing.
I LOVE Virginia. I remember "Virginia is for Lovers". What a great ad campaign. Virginia Beach was gorgeous, but the mountains are mind blowing.

PS I"m thinking of a future move up to Trinity County, CA. There are NO traffic lights in the whole county and it's part of the Emerald Triangle with Humboldt and Mendocino Counties. I've always wanted to be a "farmer".

We were basically homeless in San Rafael, although we did have our motorhome! They had this place where homeless people could shower and get a change of clothes. Many of the wealthy in the area would just bring all the stuff they didn't want any more and drop it off there. I forget what the place was called, but the people who ran it would sort through everything and all the clothing and stuff like that that homeless people could use they saved. Everything else they put out in front on tables for anyone to help themselves to. Man, we got some great stuff there!!!

Later on we were stranded in Oregon and we conducted an 'estate sale', hehehehe, out of our motorhome with most of the stuff we got there, although I kept a couple of things, like the fabulous cow collar I found there and a book called 'Pools of Lodging for the Moon'. It supported us for quite awhile!

It was almost impossible to find a place to park our motorhome though. In fact it became a phucking nightmare, with cops banging on the door at all hours of the night to tell us we had to move our vehicle. We eventually covered all the windows with cardboard and made little peepholes so we could look out without anyone being able to look in, and you could not see the lights on inside. Funny thing is one of the best places we found to park where we didn't get harassed by cops was a beautiful spot overlooking the water just a few yards down from San Quentin (the prison)! I have included a photo my daughter took of our bird one day when we were parked there.

Yeah, hehehe, when my mother first moved to Virginia I was like "Where is Virginia? What are you moving there for??" The only thing I knew about it was that 'Virginia is for Lovers'. You're right, that was a great ad campaign! I am fortunate to be hanging out here in these mountains right now.

Anyway, here is that shot I told you about:

Hehehe, where I live if I travel 15 minutes into the nearest teeny weeny town there is a flashing yellow light at the intersection of 2 highways, and it is the only traffic lite in 3 counties! My ex-boyfriend from L.A. calls me sometimes and one time he asked "What are you doing up there?" I enthusiastically said "Making dirt!" He couldn't believe it. I LOVE my compost piles and my garden!!!

I bet you will enjoy Trinity County... not that I know anything about it, but I always liked Mendocino.

Was the place in San Rafael the Ritter House? That's where we conducted our business...mail, showers, clothing, food, med clinic.
Cool pic...I'm surprised you didn't have a ton of problems over by Quentin. The cops there are usually hard a$ses, due to the proximity of the prison. It's the only place in the whole area where you'll go to jail for hitchhiking.
One terrific place in San Rafael was the DePaul dining room on B Street. GOOD food...brunch and dinner 24/7.

Ritter House! That's exactly what it was called! The dining room you mention we just called 'the chow hall'. I had to do community service there once.

Hahahaha! Go to jail for hitchhiking... and so near San Francisco of all places!!!!

It was a huge joke to us that it was one of the best places for us to park. We didn't stay there for days at a time though like we did elsewhere, we just used it for emergencies. There was a toy store in San Rafael where we parked a lot and never got bothered. Then we discovered the commuter parking lot and pretty much stayed there till we left.

Yeah...sometimes I think a sizable hunk of the populace are nothing but skittish, scared cattle. One strange sound and "Holy Sh*t..a stampede!!"

I think people just have a weird idea of what respect is!

Yeah...Jersey's road signs can be very misleading. If I hadn't spent my youth coming over to Jersey from Philly, we would never have been able to get from Avalon to Burlington County, then across the Burlington Bristol Bridge to Philly. The jughandles for left turners are not clearly noted and you're past them before you even know they're there. They still have those crazy traffic circles that will send a stranger round and round in circles til he spits up. But, the Pine Barrens and the beautiful coastline, along with the Kttitany Ridge up by the Delaware Water Gap are beautiful, must see places. Damn any sign that begins with "NO"