The Northern California Camper: A RVer's Guide to the best Campgrounds in Northwestern California

The Merrill brothers, Dr Merrill's father and uncle, were pioneers of the Seven Day Adventist Colony in Eel Rock, California in 1933. Eel Rock is located on the banks of the wild and scenic North Fork of the Eel River, about 20 miles up river from its' junction with the South Fork at Dyersville.

Because of the educational limitations of this sparsely populated rural area, the Merrill's ultimately moved to Myers Flat on the more populous South Fork of the Eel River in 1948. Dr Merrill was one of only 72 graduates from the South Fork High school in 1955. He subsequently graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with honor and a degree in Physiology Four years later, when Dr Merrill graduated from the University of Southern California Medical School, he became the first student from South Fork High School to become a MD.

After completed his internship and a year of surgical residency in California, Dr Merrill moved to Minnesota where he performed his Urology Residency under the late Don Crevy at the University of Minnesota Health Sciences Center in Minneapolis. After completing his residency, Dr Merrill performed a NIH special fellowship in Urology at the University of Minnesota and subsequently joined the staff of the Urology department at that institution.

In 1973 Dr Merrill was recruited by the University of California at Davis to administer their Urology training program at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Martinez California. Dr Merrill served as Chief of Urology in that institution until its closure for seismic considerations in 1991.

Dr Merrill and his family have a summer home on the banks of the Klamath River, about 30 miles upriver from its mouth, and have spent their vacations at this retreat for the past 36 years. This, of course, is right in the middle of Big Foot country.

Since retiring in 2001, Dr Merrill and his wife Tina have spent a large part of each summer exploring the numerous campgrounds in Northern California in their camper. The totality of his lifelong attachment to this beautiful part of the state gives the author a unique perspective of the area and makes him eminently qualified to write about the opportunities available to those who wish to visit the Northern California Coast, the Redwood Empire and or Big Foot country (the Klamath and Trinity rivers).