Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Konocti Mountain at Lakeport

We had hooked up the car the night before our departure from Fortuna. It takes us two hours from bed to road and we are not early risers so having the car hitched is a good start. 

Next day we set off in the rain and it was relentless. Wipers on all the time; swish/swish...these are big wipers. We had booked ahead to an RV camp in Leggett but we decided to keep going to our next scheduled stop Lakeport on the shores of Clearlake which is dominated by Konocti Mountain.

Konocti is a sacred mountain to the Native Americans, who have been living in the area for over 12,000 years; it is a dormant volcanic mountain on the south side of Clear Lake.  Needless to say there are houses built right up the side of it with fantastic views.

Clear Lake which has been there for millions of years is 100 miles around. Lakeport is the county seat and it is a pretty little town with a very good museum in the old Court House of the history of the Pomo people, their culture, weaving and basket making. One exhibit that fascinated was a reed boat – very similar to those from ancient Egypt. In the lobby of the museum we met a genuine Pomo, Thomas I told him I thought John Wayne had killed them all and after a good laugh we had a great chat with him. Once again we stayed beside a Casino, this time literally on a strip of land belonging to the Pomo tribe. Let me put it this way they do not have houses with great views.

We drove down to Calistoga and saw "Old Faithful" shooting into to the air and a few minor steam pools along the side of the road.  Calistoga which is in the wine country has mud baths and hot geysers. We had left the fishing area of California and entered into the wine country. Most places before Calistoga relied on the fisherman for business.

On Sunday we had a wonderful traditional Holiday Victorian Afternoon Tea at the Lakeport English Inn which is run by Karan Mackey a former Mayor of Lakeport and Supervisor of Lake County. I also purchased some gifts from their beautifully Holiday store.

I am having some challenges downloading videos and photos and will work on resolving these issues during the Holidays as I have some great shots to show.


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