We took a day trip yesterday a bit further north to see a huge redwood that is unique in two ways – first it has several large branches coming out of the main trunk about 50 feet up in the air. Most redwoods are like other pine trees – one straight trunk with many very small branches out from the trunk. The second unique feature is that back in the 30s people who owned the land this redwood is on cut through the trunk so create a space a car or small SUV can drive through! It’s on private land where the owners have created a small park and picnic area and gift shop. The pictures below show the tree:
Category Archives: 5-North Calif Coast (Fort Bragg) CA
Fort Bragg/Mendocino coastline
We drove 8 miles south to check out the town of Mendocino. The town itself is very small and old, but contains several art and jewelry galleries. We learned there that abalone, which was used in a lot of the jewelry we saw, is unique to the northern California/south Oregon coastline. It’s been fished and poached to the point where it’s in danger of extinction and there are many laws now to protect it and prosecute poachers.
The town is set in from the coast because of the rocky jagged nature of the coast. We took several pictures while we scrambled around over rocks and crags to get a look at the actual shore. In one picture below there are two red arrows pointing out that there are two people in the picture – that’s to give you some perspective of how high and steep it is. In one picture there is a small area of beach with sand, but no way to get down to it!
And, I included a picture of Jeff and Laddy – Laddy was real excited and sniffed around a lot and almost pulled Jeff over at one point…luckily Jeff had him and not me! Notice that Jeff is wearing cold-weather clothes! This shot was taken about 1pm on Sunday Sept 16th and it was still foggy and very cold!
Get out the winter clothes – it’s COLD here in Ft. Bragg
Even though we’d checked the weather prior to coming here to Ft. Bragg, we weren’t prepared for how cold it is here. We are very close to the ocean and there’s a marine layer that hides the sun for most of the day. Yesterday (Saturday) the sun came out for a couple of hours, but then the fog rolled in and it got cold again.
It’s been around 50 in the evenings and mornings, and warms up to the high 50s during the day. Even when the sun is out there’s a breeze that keeps it from feeling warm. So…we got our winter clothes out from beneath the bed storage where they’d been stored.
This brings up another problem – where to put our coats and sweaters when we’re not wearing them?!? Our summer clothes fit just fine in the small wardrobe and couple of cupboards. But more clothes and heavier clothes means more space is needed. We solved it by putting a hook on the door between the living area and the bathroom for Jeff’s coats and another hook on the sliding door between the bedroom and the bathroom (our bathroom is in the middle of the trailer between the living area and the bedroom) for my coats. It works pretty well.
We have a LOT of those “Command” hooks that stick well but come off easily so that we don’t have to put holes into the flimsy wall and door material in the trailer. My large kitchen utensils hang on the wall, Jeff’s hats hang on the wall, Laddy’s leash, brush and clean-up bags hang on the wall. There’s not a lot of wall space (more windows which I’m glad for) but the wall space we do have is filling up!
Fort Bragg, CA
Yesterday we drove up Hiway 1 along the coast from Larkspur to Fort Bragg. Beautiful coastline – steep and sometimes sheer cliffs, rocks in the surf, forests and meadows. It took a lot longer than we expected as the going was slow in a lot of areas and we went through several very small towns of 200-400 people where the speed limit slows to 25mph.
But, we got here and got set up at our new site, at Dolphin Isle. Our trailer is against a riverbank that is forest on the other bank and there’s a marmarina on the other side of the RV park.
A full-time resident here at the RV park makes his living carving deer antlers and pieces of wood into walking sticks and decorative pieces, sometimes adding gems or interesting stones to them. He was very taken with Laddy and gave him a small piece of antler to chew on. Laddy carried it all the way back home in his mouth and has been gnawing on it all evening.