Big trees and little trees

Suddenly the end of the earth popped up as we travelled West, and there are huge trees. Seems everything is or was related to lumbering here.

Fort Bragg was built in the mid 1800's to control the local native peoples, while the coast was heavily logged. There are quite a few state parks along here. We stayed at MacKerricher and Van Damme state parks, which came from family estates based on the early timber industry.

Just south of Fort Bragg is Van Damme SP; it is at the mouth of a small river, so it has a beach and trails up into the river canyon and up to a pigmy forest. I think this was our favorite in this area, for having the great trails and beach. Alice found lots of shiny abalone shell bits here.


There are redwoods that are very big, but mostly there are stumps from old growth or a ring of trees where the original huge trees were.




We stayed for two nights and explored the trails. Biking up the trails to the pygmy forest was hard work, and educational. At least the ride back a different way on paved roads was all downhill. It was uphill to get there, because the land is terraced by the combination of erosion by the sea, and uplift along the San Andreas fault. The drainage from the flat terraces prevents any new organic soil from washing in, the rain leaches out any minerals,






We spent a few more days along the coast on route 1, and then the road goes back east and to the Humboldt Redwoods state park. Here there are still groves of old growth redwoods. I could speculate that these were just a little harder to get to, compared to those closer to the coasts. So they were still around in the teens and twenties, when people got concerned enough to buy up and preserve some old growth areas.

The truck fit through, but we didn't have enough momentum for the bikes and trailer to squeeze in.



Some of the campgrounds were closed this early, but we found a spot at Burlington campground. It has some trails and a good visitor center. Driving on the Avenue of the Giants scenic road, avoiding the big 101 freeway, there are also plenty of good hikes if you stop at all the auto tour signs.








Another fun thing to watch as you drive along the road; the trees close to the road tend to have notches and divets 8 to 10 feet up, about the height of campers whizzing past. No notches on our account though....

Van Damme and MacKerricher State Parks

After a long day of driving, we made it to the Pacific Coast!  There's a bunch of little parks and pulloffs all around here where you can go down to the water -- we stopped at one right away!  The Pacific seems a lot more dangerous than the Atlantic -- the cliffs are bigger, the waves look bigger, and there are lots of "DANGER" signs.  The cliffs are really pretty though!

This is where we stopped when we first hit the ocean

The cliffs are really pretty!

We had been hoping to stay in Jackson State Forest, just outside of Fort Bragg, but most of the campgrounds were closed, and the only open one was back a ways, so we kept going, and ended up at Van Damme State Park.  (There are a bunch of state parks around here -- I think there were three within five miles of each other!)

The beach at Van Damme

Van Damme was nice -- my parents and I took a ride through the woods over to a pygmy forest, which is where the soil is really acidic, so all the trees are really short.  They were really dense though, it was kinda crazy!

We were also right by the ocean, so we walked around out there a bit.  There was a nice hiking trail back in the woods also, we did a little bit of that.  Mendocino is a cute little town nearby, and there's a little park out there that you can walk around out on.

After two days at Van Damme, we headed north to MacKerricher State Park.  We went through Fort Bragg, and got some groceries and Internet.  (It's a pretty big town, much larger than I thought.)  We also stopped at a glass beach, which was cool.

The glass beach

We arrived at MacKerricher, just a few miles north of Fort Bragg, later in the day, but we still had time to get set up and explore around a bit.

There's a bike trail that runs from the state park south to the park where the glass beach is, that was a nice ride.  We also explored around on the beach some.

The beach at MacKerricher

On our last day at the park, we went back into town a bit, then drove north to a really pretty pull-off off of the highway, right by a cliff.  It was kinda surreal, and super pretty!

You Can Smell It Coming From A Mile Away

     If you've ever been to the ocean, you know what I'm talking about. That strange, distinctive smell of salt, water, fish and seaweed. Okay, maybe in reality, it's hard to smell the ocean until you're right on top of it. But still, you know the smell.
     The Pacific Ocean certainly makes an entrance, much more so then the Atlantic. The coast is made up of small sandy coves, and huge steep cliffs. The tops of the cliffs are covered in wildflowers, in shades of red, yellow, purple and blue. The rock itself is dark gray, wet, and coated in  bright green algae. As for shells, well, there isn't much. Unless you count the abalone. And yes, you should count the abalone. It's hard to describe, with a silvery white ground color and an iridescent coating on it. Most of it is just fragments, but we found two whole shells, one the size of my palm,  the other, the size of my face. No exaggeration included.
     The water itself is much bluer, and seems much more powerful. It's also a lot clearer, but that could be the time of year, the weather, our current location, or my highly active imagination. It's certainly worth the trip.

 Our first real view of the ocean, and it wasn't even windy.

 Some of the spray on the rocks, and just a nice view.

 The little beach we were on for a while.

 A spot along the highway, but I'm not entirely sure.

 Searching for shells, or sea glass.

 Another cool picture of the ocean.

 A pretty little headland with Elliot out on the end, and me about halfway.

 A really cool little arch we saw, there are a lot of these out here.

West After Sacramento

After taking my math test, we didn't have anything else we needed to do in Sacramento (and I was really ready to go!) so the day after, we packed up and started heading west!
We ended up at Cache Creek Regional Park, a little county park right up in the mountains, right by a river.


We explored around a little bit on our bikes, and found a little trail – the “Blue Ridge Trail” – that we went up a little way, and decided to do more tomorrow.
There were lots of flowers out along the trail, and it seems very lush compared to the deserts we have between through.



This bridge had a weight limit of 0 tons – we all made it across though.

When we woke up the next morning, it was raining, (and Alice wasn't feeling good) so we hung out inside for most of the morning. It kinda cleared up after lunch, so my parents and I hopped on our bikes and went over to the Blue Ridge Trail. (Alice was kinda sick, so she stayed home)
We hiked up, and up, and up. The trail was kinda muddy, but it wasn't too slippery. We could see the road and the river sometimes, which was cool.
We walked for a while, and then finally decided to turn around. (We were running out of food, too!)

This sign at the park was pretty funny

The next day, we packed up and headed out, towards Clear Lake. We drove through Clearlake State Park, but decided to keep going.

Clear Lake

We took CA-175 for a bit – it was really twisty! Very pretty drive though.





We were thinking to stop at the South Cow Moutain OHV area for the night, but there was a locked gate across the road up into there, so we kept going.
As we were driving along, we realized that we weren't too far from where the guy who let us borrow his hot springs book down in Holtville lives, so we detoured over there, and found the place to drop off the book.
We also managed to find a place to stay for the night – a little Army Corps of Engineers campground/recreation area right on Lake Mendocino.
My dad and I took a little bike ride on this biking/hiking trail that we found, and ended up a few miles south of the campground, but we were able to find our way back on the roads. The hills by the lake are really big!

While there were showers, there wasn't any Internet, so the next day, we packed up and headed out towards the coast!

Sacramento Valley

Elliot's math test was arranged to be taken in Sacramento, being generally on our path clockwise around the US.  There were a couple of boondocker places we had lined up to stay near and in the city,  and the post office had some minor goodies waiting for us.

First day driving through the city, we found the post office and the library.  Once we got to the library, everyone went inside, and I couldn't help myself.  I had to install my goodie right away;  a current shunt for the battery negative cable so the solar charge controller will also track state of charge.  Good clean fun for an hour or two...  The library security guy came and asked me to clear out like I'm moving into the parking lot, ok I did have tools on the tailgate of the truck.

In the afternoon we found a great park and trail along the river, and we took a good ride.  Another Bob Dylan sighting:


First we stayed out east of Folsom Lake in the El Dorado hills.  Our first impression of the hills was "here's where they filmed Walnut Grove and Little House on the Prairie."   More biking and exploring, and prepping for the test.  Elliot has been managing his own coursework for AP Calculus, this would be the material I did in first year of college.  I've been impressed with his diligence and patience, I haven't helped much.  This last week or two, I was able to help reviewing the several practice tests.  He has improved a bit on each of the practice tests, and he's gotten into the range for a 4 (out of 5) that he needs to get credit for the class.  We'll find out his score in July.







A couple days before the test we moved to a spot closer to the high school, and stopped in to confirm his registration and where to show up on test day.

Fast times at Rosemont High.   Let me out!

We stayed at another boondocker's place, a nice working class neighborhood in Sacramento.  The neighborhood was great for biking around again.  And plenty of cool car projects parked around to check out.

Hello

How many VW campervans do you need?  More!   (count-em Count!  One!  Two!  Three!   Four!)       (four is peeking around the fence on a trailer out on the street, must be the newest aquisition)

The evening after Elliot's test we surprised him with his recent favorite movie, The Force Awakens, the third time watching it now.  Alice was so supportive too, she made him brownies to celebrate.

This other cool old truck was on the way out the next day, at an olive oil mill.  Probably too much of a project....