A look in the kitchen where Marjore made us breakfast. There were several small tables with place settings and OJ. Breakfast was orange blossom whole wheat pancakes were good, with bacon...
A look in the kitchen where Marjore made us breakfast. There were several small tables with place settings and OJ. Breakfast was orange blossom whole wheat pancakes were good, with bacon...
Unlike our Norway and Patagonia trips, which were highly planned and packed with daily hikes and camping, this trip's itinerary was intentionally left open, to allow time to relax, and do whatever we felt like. After a little research, we came up with a list of sights to visit today, and left the farm house ~10am.
First stop: Russian Gulch State Park, just a mile north of Mendocino. I paid the $8 entrance fee, and chatted with a park ranger for info. We decided to check out a sink hole near the beach first.
The surf was again very rough today. We followed a short trail along the coast amid cloudy skies...
We ran into some people, who took our photo. It was high tide, and breakwater was super foamy...
After walking around, I spotted this land bridge, and asked Wendy if she wanted to walk over, for a pic...
She did, and so there she stands above the water tunnel (and on one foot)...
Next we hopped back in the car and drove into the woods a bit for a hike to a waterfall. The road was closed for winter, so it was ~2.5 miles of hiking on a road and trail to reach the falls.
The path led past mossy trees and green ferns. It was a very flat trail, only a couple hundred feet of elevation gain...
After ~1hr on the trail, we reached the 39' waterfall. It was pretty, but we've been spoiled with more impressive waterfalls in Ithaca, Colorado, and elsewhere. I played with my new tripod, for some long exposure shots of the water...
As we hiked back, we briefly felt a few sprinkles of rain. When we reached the car, we drove back to Mendocino to look for lunch. Wendy caught some phone service and researched some places. We ended up at a nice cafe, where I had a monster tuna salad. Wendy had a spinach salad, and we split some crab cakes.
Lunch time in Mendocino. We both agreed that my salad was super yummy...
After lunch, we drove several miles south, and up to a pygmy forest, which sounded cool. However it turned out to be a bunch of semi-dead bushes, which we tried to make seem exciting.
Wendy can't help but be excited by this stimulating pygmy forest trail. Fortunatley it was a very short trail, and we were soon heading back to town...
Next on the list was Glass Beach, in Fort Bragg, 10 miles north of Mendocino. This beach used to be the town dump in the early 1900s, and as a result, there's tons of polished pretty glass pieces on the beach, which people like to collect.
We head out to Glass Beach, a popular place for tourists. A look at some large waves...
Wendy scoured the beach for polished glass pieces, while I climbed some rocks and took pics. The 2nd pic is a moment before Wendy started running inland with the arrival of a big wave...
It was nearly low tide, yet the "once a year" high surf levels resulted in huge waves...
I moved to another rock and snapped pics of Wendy scavaging for glass...
Lots of people were out on the rocks during this low-tide opportunity. I eventually did some searching, and we collected a couple handfuls of cool glass beads...
Next on the list: tidepools. Supposedly there were good tide pools north of Fort Bragg, so we set out in search. We found McKerricker's park, but had to park far away from the shore, due to road closures. After a 10 minute walk, we made our way to a dark sand (more like tiny rocks) beach, and walked up the coast looking for tide pools.
The dark sand beach was very beautiful, and a pleasant walk. We eventually turned back and decided to head towards the peninsula in the 2nd pic...
Wendy framed the pic with the posts. After a long walk, we reached the end of the peninsula, near where a bunch of seals were resting on rocks...
The waves were beautiful to watch. Wendy got some good pics of them...
For a brief moment just before sunset, some clouds turned pink, which reflected on the water. Good time for a self portrait...
With the sun gone, we made the long walk back to the car, and drove into Fort Bragg looking for dinner places. We were deciding between a brewery pub, and a bistro place. We opted for dinner at the bistro, followed by a visit to the Northwest Brewing Company's pub for beer tasting and watching Olympics on their TV.
After a 30 minute wait, I ordered a spinch and spiced pecan salad, and Wendy ordered some fish. It was a good meal, and we had fun drawing stuff on the paper table cloth with crayones (all the customers seemed to be doing that)...
What a fun way to end the day (at least for me) with beer tasting at the Northwest Brewing Company. We watched some pairs figure skating, and Wendy bought a cool looking sovenior pint glass...
It was another drive back to the B&B under light quenching darkness, though some stars were out tonight. What a fine relaxing day, even though we managed to pack a lot in.
Go to next day