Please, sir, may I have Samoa?

We are parked outside of the Samoa Cookhouse in Samoa, California (map), across Humboldt Bay from Eureka.

Long time readers know that this is one of our favorite restaurants, although we've only ever been here for breakfast or lunch. The last time we ate here, though, the dinner menu appealed to us, and I asked at the desk if we could park overnight in their lot, were we to eat dinner here. They gave us a hearty "yes," and so this morning I called to re-check that information, and to find out what's for dinner (roast beef, and pork steaks).

This will work out well, because we can have a glass or two of wine with dinner, and just stumble back home. In the past, before we thought to ask about spending the night, we'd stayed at the Samoa Boat Ramp county park, about five miles down the road. In addition to saving the ten mile round trip, we save the $15 (last we checked) it costs to dry camp there. I've always thought of the Cookhouse as a breakfast place; we'll see how we like it for dinner.

For the uninitiated, the Cookhouse serves all meals family style, and you eat whatever they are serving that day. There is no "menu" and no choice, other than whether or not to help yourself to whatever is on the platter. They keep bringing more helpings until you tell them to stop -- all you can eat (as opposed to all you should eat). I was initiated at a motorcycle rally, where we nearly filled the place for breakfast, and the platters were heaped high. When Louise and I eat here by ourselves, they bring more reasonably sized platters.

We had a short, pleasant, and sunny drive here from Benbow, where we spent last night at the Benbow RV Resort (map). Here again, long time readers may recognize that we've been there before, and, in fact, this trip is shaping up to be the exact reverse, stop for stop, of our trip southward in January of last year.



As then, our purpose for stopping there was really to have dinner at the Benbow Inn, a wonderful white-linen place with a great chef. Yesterday was our sixth wedding anniversary, and we wanted to eat someplace nice, rejecting several other stops along the way. Unlike last time, when we were there off-season, yesterday's stay set us back $52, after AAA/FMCA discount and including the $5 dog surcharge (up a whopping 67% since our last visit). Nevertheless, it was worthwhile for the meal, and I even managed a soak in the hot tub and swim in the pool this pleasant morning (it rained cats and dogs last night, precluding any such pleasantries when we arrived).

So far today we've managed to stay dry, but yesterday's storm system forced buckets of water into the coach through all our various leaks, including several gallons raining down on the dash from some ingress into the cockpit ceiling while under way.



Our principal goal for our visit to Infinity Coach this month will be to try to deal with these leaks yet another time. We have leak management down to a science now, so they are annoying but not destructive, but still, we'd like to have a leak-free home for the next few years, and besides that, we'll never be able to sell Odyssey without fixing them -- it's not as if any potential buyer can't just look here on the blog to see every problem we've ever had with the bus.

We've been moving north rather faster than I had expected, and I am hoping tomorrow we will find a nice spot for a couple days of down time. I have some work to do around the house, and, frankly, we really need to unwind from our rather hectic schedule in the bay area.