Going Coastal

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My last gasp at summer holidays came in the form of a road trip to the coast, the northern coast of California in Mendocino County. We left the house in Sacramento at about noon on Friday and drove north on Interstate 5 - I drove while Kris continued to work sending emails, texts and making phone calls. The drive here was unremarkable, just flat farm land as far as we could see. At Williams we turned west onto the much slower and smaller highway 20. I drove up into the coastal mountains and past Clear Lake, a very large body of water favoured by boaters with second homes in the country. We stopped at a small town of Lucerne for refreshments and a change of driver. We continued west to the coast as the trees got taller and the temperature dropped. The road started to really wind and twist through the Jackson Demonstration Forest. The scene was dramatic because in the dense forest the sun broke through in brilliant straight as an arrow shafts of light. The road turned and turned and twisted and twisted as we dropped altitude all the way to the sea. All I could do was watch the road and hang on for 20 miles in 30 minutes - this was not a fast road.

We arrived in Fort Bragg near dinner time. Fort Bragg is in Mendocino County about 130 miles north of San Francisco on the coastal highway 1. Fort Bragg is an old logging town on the coast, no remarkable architecture. The forest is a mile or two from the coast and the town sits on a low lying flat region that runs into the sea. Kris has friends who own a house in Fort Bragg and that's how we came to decide on going there. The house is used a few times a year, but not continuously. When we entered all the furniture was covered in sheets and the smell of dust permeated. But once we opened a few doors and removed those sheets all was fine. I had some tea to settle my stomach after that final twisting ride into Fort Bragg, then we set off for dinner. Our first choice was awfully busy so we moved on to another restaurant. It's often very surprising how you stumble upon wonderful places to eat. We ate at the Mendo Bistro; it was full but with a large and open floor plan the place was not crowded and was not loud. We both ordered chicken, but it was prepared differently. The amazing thing about this place was that you can choose your meat, independently choose the cooking method, independently choose the sauce and independently choose the accompanying vegetables. A matrix of hundreds of combinations. The chicken was locally grown free range and organic. And the meal was absolutely delicious, one of the best meals all summer. If you look and you're prepared to pay a little more, you can find some wonderful food in America. I've eaten at some great restaurants and eaten fantastic food on this trip, and without paying a fortune - it's all just a matter of looking, and avoiding the chain restaurants.

On Saturday it was cloudy. A thick layer of marine air covered the sky and didn't let go until the very end of the day at sunset. It was cool all day, 60 degrees Fahrenheit, 16 degrees Celsius, cold enough to keep a sweater on all day. We went into town and wandered into the shops, the tourist shops of Fort Bragg. All the items you don't need but think you want to buy on impulse. We walked into a used books shop, a sock shop, a photo art gallery, and several bric a brac shops that sell everything of no value. Later in the afternoon we drove south 8 miles to the town of Mendocino, for which the entire county is named. This is a more pretty town, plenty of old wooden buildings in the Victorian style and the town reaches right onto the coast. Murder She Wrote was filmed here. We stopped in a few more of these bric a brac nothing important shops. I quite like wandering through these shops to satisfy my curiosity, but in the end all I bought were three post-cards. It was getting late and it was time to return to Fort Bragg. We bought supplies to make dinner back at the house. As we were driving, the sky started to break. A brilliant ray of sunshine broke over the sea. We stopped for photos at a few places along the way. At one of the stops at the southern reach of the town of Fort Bragg there were about a dozen deer grazing around people's houses. I kept taking photos until the last of the light went below the horizon. The deer continued to eat in the dark.

Sunday was just about the longest day all summer, but we didn't expect that when we set off in the morning. Our first stop was a few miles north of Fort Bragg at the beautiful MacKerricher State Park to see the tide pools. We checked the tide charts the day before. Low tide was at 8am, and we got there at 9:30 am, the sea was out but coming onshore smashing against the rocky headlands. At the tide pools I saw plenty of snails and crabs, plenty of seaweed and one anemone. In the brochure there were pictures of sea stars, but I couldn't find any that morning despite my search all over the tide pools scrambling over the rocks and precariously balancing on one foot with the camera in one hand and the other arm out like a trapeze artist. Far out on the rocks there were a few harbour seals basking in the cool salty sunshine. The weather was great this morning. While the day before the skies were dark grey all day until sunset, Sunday was clear all day. We stayed for about an hour, with the sun low behind us and the waves crashing in front of us.

We returned to the house to clean up, then set off again south to Mendocino. We stopped for lunch, sandwiches we took with us to eat on the road. (In the car, not on the actual road.) We drove further south along the coastal highway 1 until we got to highway 128, and then turned east. This takes us into the Narvarro River Redwoods State Park. This is deep and dense forest just a few miles inland. It's amazing that just a short turn inland and the micro-climate can change drastically enough to grow the tallest and thickest of trees. The park is very narrow, maybe less than a mile wide but about 15 miles along as it follows the Navarro River upstream. We stopped and had lunch. Quite a few cars raced by, so it wasn't too peaceful and quiet but it was beautiful. The ground was covered in large leaf clover and ferns and plenty of pine cones littered the forest floor. Many trees were toppled and just left to rot and return their nutrients back to the soil feeding the natural ecosystem of the park. Redwoods do not make very good timber as it's too brittle.

We drove to the Hendy Woods State Park, the place with even more Redwood trees. What's very surprising about this tiny park is that there are Redwoods at all. Over the mountain ridge we drove and down into the Alexender Valley past vineyards, including the Husch Vineyard which supplied the wine I had two nights before at that lovely bistro. We stopped at the park entrance and paid the fee, drove past oak trees and parked. We walked a few meters past more oak trees following the map and suddenly emerged in a dense Redwood grove. No cars this time, just the serene beauty and solitude of the forest. We only saw four other people on our walk. We walked along the trails in an elliptical one mile loop past the giant Redwood trees, as we got deeper the trees got bigger. Height we can't measure well from our perspective, but the diameter just astonished us. A few Redwoods had fallen, and we walked alongside these for 30 to 50 meters. The floor was thick with clover, ferns and pine cones. In the wind, the trees swayed and creeked. I think the sound reminds me of a rusty door slowly swinging open. Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek.

We continued south east on highway 128 through the Alexander Valley. I took over the driving. The road was narrow and twisted violenty left and right for about 10 miles just before it merged with the divided highway 101. We got to Cloverdale and refueled. At the gas station, there was a mother of three in a SUV with a flat tire. She tried to get help from the gas attendent but he wasn't too keen. She didn't have a spare tire, and there wasn't much we could do. And here's where karma hits the pavement. We drove on and continued east toward Napa Valley to cut over to Sacramento. A few miles after refueling we got our own flat tire. In fact, the tire had worn completely down to the steel belt. The front left tire had worn so completely differently than the other three tires. Kris was able to phone AAA, so I didn't have to change the flat. Actually, this flat tire event wasn't so bad. As we waited we watched the sun go down on a vineyard and ate cheese and crackers we had saved in the cooler. The mechanic arrived a prompt 30 minutes after the phone call. He put on the spare tire that was in the truck, but this was only rated at 50 mph. We were only half way back to Sacramento and with a tire that limits our speed. And here's where the adventure begins.

We left the Alexender Valley of vineyards and entered Napa Valley through a narrow canyon that separates the two valleys. We stopped for dinner at Calistoga and watched the sky lose all light. Slowly we drove. On the state highways 50 mph is not so bad, we only hold up some traffic, but we had to drive on Interstate Highway 80 for a while to make it across the valley. I drove this section. It's very stressful driving at 50 mph while all the other traffic races past at about 70 mph, cars move around you like you are a real obstacle. We could have gone faster, I don't think the spare tire would have failed but if anything did go wrong, there is no warranty on the tire and it's not clear the insurance would cover any accident. We left the interstate as soon as possible and entered farm country. These are straight roads, but not illuminated. We could follow the map so we knew approximately where we were, but we had no sense of what was around us, to the left and right of us was the inky blackness of a farm at night. We plodded on going east and then north while the Interstate was faster and a shorter distance going directly north east. There isn't anyway road other than the Interstate Highway 80 to get across the Sacramento River floodway, so we got back on the highway for the remaining few miles. This section of the highway is elevated a few meters above the ground as a causeway. Once every few years the Sacramento River bursts its banks and spills over into the floodplain; the causeway lets traffic and commerce continue during the flood. We made it back to the house in Sacramento about 14 hours after we left in the morning to see the tide pools. A mighty long day indeed.

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Photos

Tide Pools
Anemone

Comments

[Rob Wakefield]

Great pics!
Such a great destination for anyone who enjoys breathtaking scenery. Rob Mendocino Hotels