Llywindatravels 2025

Happy July 4, 2015

The July 4th parade in Mendocino was truly eclectic. There were fire trucks from many jurisdictions in Mendocino county.

We missed the presence of a high school marching band, but there was live music provided by people who looked to be about our age.

The California state parks were represented.

There were also political floats, again all manned by um, “mature” persons.

The “No Hack and Squirt” float refers to a logging practice where “lower value” species are killed by hacking into the bark and spraying a dose of herbicide. The problem with this approach is that the herbicide can spread to other “desirable” trees relatively easily, if there is rain, if the cuts in the bark are not properly made. The forest industry views hack and squirt as a highly effective management method. Local people view hack and squirt as the poisoning of hundreds of acres of trees for no reason.

This float consisted of a single table. It was the display of a local custom furniture maker.

This seems to be a parody of old time logging, with a female lumberjack, and a goat hauling a small load of miniature redwood logs.

Parents for Peace had banners with every current social problem–they’re tackling all of them.

Last but not least, this bird walked down the parade route, stopping every 30 feet or so to deposit a shaving cream “poop”. There was also a float of a “llama” that “peed” on the crowd, and a banana slug, but it had run out of slime. Who organized this parade, the 5th grade boys?

We did go on to see the fireworks shot over the mouth of the Noyo River. The pizza was good (Piaci’s in Ft. Bragg) but the fog was pretty thick. The fireworks showed through, they just had an added aura, courtesy of the fog.

Moving Day, July 1, 2015

We moved from Little River to Ft. Bragg, CA for the month of July, though we plan to move back to the Little River house in August. It was a bit of a trial to pack up, though probably a good exercise. There are somewhat fewer canned goods, but the car still ended up filled to the doors. We left right at 9 am with the tourist’s dilemma of how to pass the time until we could move into our next abode at 3 pm.

After a delicious coffee at Moody’s Organic Coffee Shop in Mendocino, we stopped in to visit the Mendocino Botanical Garden in Ft. Bragg. It’s a wonderful place. We looked at birds, but mostly the flowers.

We moved into our new apartment in downtown Ft. Bragg and found that it is very well located, but has a peculiar layout. There are two bedrooms and two baths, but you can only get from one bedroom to the bathroom by walking through the other bedroom. The living/dining area is spacious and comfortable and the kitchen is well-outfitted.

The view out the window is also peculiar. We can see the ocean to the west, but between us and the water is an area that is being subject to cleanup of toxic metals left from the earlier Union Pacific Lumber Co. mill that was the main industry of the town for many years. The cleanup is under way, but won’t be completed for an uncertain period of time. Sooooo, ocean view, yes, but don’t look down.

Summer Stories

If you ever had a small child, you understand this scene. I’m sure the family that this shoe belonged to passed us on the trail just a few minutes earlier. Whenever this happened with one of our girls, I always wondered what could possibly have happened to that shoe.

Unlike this photo (above), most of my stories these days are related to nature. We have birds all around us and lots of deer.

Near the house, a pair of deer and twin fawns visit regularly:

We have two pairs of hummingbirds, as well, Anna’s and Allen’s (no really, they’re both species of hummingbirds).

These are the male (above) and female (below) Allen’s hummingbirds.

This is the male Anna’s hummingbird out of the sun (black throat and head) and in the sun (cherry red throat and head). Can you believe that the angle of the sun lights him up like this?

Further from the house, I came across this pair of deer grazing in the field near the cliff edge about half way between our house and Chapman Point on a misty afternoon. The stag seems to be checking that I’m not disturbing his doe. His antlers are still new and velvety.

If that’s not enough, how about plants from outer space?

I’m sure Dr. Suess drew these.

A drive through the Redwoods, 6/25/15

We turned inland, driving into the woods. There are a series of state parks that extend inland from the coast road (Rte. 101) for ten miles or more if you can find the road. We twisted and turned up and down through the forest, winding down Caspar Orchard Road for almost 8 miles until it met Little Lake Rd. that would around another 10 miles back into Mendocino.

Stump of an old growth redwood.

Some of the hillsides were so steep that I couldn’t see to the bottom.

There’s still logging gong on in some areas:

Is that how they fund some of the park costs?

It’s the part of the forest furthest from the highway, least frequently visited, and the area is all secondary forest already.

It was a great afternoon’s adventure.

Another gorgeous day on the coast

There has been much less mist and much more sun the past three days (6/22-6/24), and we have continued to explore the coast between our house in Little River and Ft. Bragg, our next stop.We walked a trail along the headlands just south of Mendocino Bay, near Chapman Point:

That’s the town of Mendocino in the background.

We’ve found fishing spots, and watched the tide come in.

The afternoon that we watched the waves crash here, south of Chapman Point, I saw the afternoon sun glinting in a pool of water and saw empty abalone shells, though they were too deep to reach. Since it was just about high tide, we decided to return the next morning at low tide and see whether we could fish them out.

At low tide the next day, I was able to fish out these shells with the fishing pole.

This is what I pulled out:

The largest of these shells, on the right, is just about 7 inches long, the minimum size for taking abalone if you have a permit. Unfortunately, since these five shells were all together and don’t show much evidence of tumbling in the waves, they may be what’s left of an abalone poacher’s activity. The poacher would remove the abalone from the shell and hide the meat, discarding the shell. The legal limit is 3 abalone per day and each has to be a minimum of 7 inches long–only one of these would have been legal. Legally taken abalone must be tagged through the animal and one of the holes in the shell until the abalone is processed for consumption. Not much chance of that here. I am hoping that there will be less poaching during July when the abalone season is closed. During that month, anyone in the water with a float will be suspect, so I believe people will avoid diving. That may keep the abalone going a bit longer.

A Taste of Redwood Valley, Solstice, and Father’s Day, all in one.

June 21, 2015 was all of the above. We didn’t know much about “A Taste of Redwood Valley” but we took a chance and drove there, and that turned out to be a great idea. Today was a community-wide tasting that included seven vineyards and one craft distillery.

Participants included Barra of Mendocino (Girasole Vineyards), Brown Family Wines, Frey Vineyards, Giuseppe Wines (Norse Vineyards), Graziano Faimily of Wines, Silversmith Vineyards, Testa Vineyards and Germain-Robin/ACWD Craft Distillers.

These wineries are not open every weekend for tasting, though some are available for tastings by appointment. The Taste of Redwood Valley makes it possible to visit as many of these wineries as you wish–or that you have the stamina to visit. Tickets were $35 per person and included a wine glass, all tastings, and complimentary food at each stop. Food included pasta salads, hot pasta, rice salad, tossed green salad, bread. We started at Barra, where a very welcoming hostess got us started, and a long list of wines were available for tasting in a large circular tasting room. As usual, I tasted whites while Jonathan tasted reds. We bought Sauvignon Blanc and a Pinot Noir.

http://www.barraofmendocino.com/

Our next stop was Testa’s outdoor tasting room, up a driveway and beside their guest house. Everyone was just as friendly here as at Barra, and we ended up buying three bottles.

https://testaranch.com

From there we went to Brown Family Wines, where the owner told us about his move from Manchester, England to Redwood City as he searched for a different lifestyle. Between shopping for property, moving his family including three daughters and navigating the permitting process for improvements to the property, it is quite a story. We ended up with a case of wine from the Brown family.http://www.californiawineryadvisor.com/wineries/view/Brown_Family_Wines

Rather than pushing to hit all of the vineyards (!), our final stop for the day was at Germain-Robin, to taste distilled spirits. There were flavored brandies (orange, vanilla, cherry–I liked the orange best). There were liqueurs, including one flavored with rose petals. “They made this for our wedding,” said the woman next to me. She and her husband explained that for their rose-themed wedding they wanted something special and they were able to have an early and somewhat experimental batch of the rose liqueur. (“We were R&D!” they said.) It did taste like rose petals, stronger than rose water, and definitely an acquired taste, but it clearly has its fans. There was gin scented with ginger, with lime, or London Dry gin. There were California whiskies (who knew?), and more products than I could taste, even spitting most of it out.

home

We headed back to our house in Little River around 3:30 pm, got to Ft. Bragg in under an hour, and home after a stop at the store. It was a wonderful day. This was our second wine tasting day. Our first was last Sunday when we visited the Alexander Valley. That area will take many more visits, however. Redwood City holds a fall event, so you don’t need to wait until next year to visit.

Arch at entrance to Willets, CA, "Gateway to the Redwoods" — Arch at entrance to Willets, CA, “Gateway to the Redwoods” on the way from Redwood Valley to Mendocino.

Don’t even think about catching or eating Abalone.

We got up in time to be on the coast at low tide just after 8 am. There are only a few days this summer when unusually low tide coincides with the 8 am start time for abalone fishing. In fact, the start time was moved to 8 am from an earlier hour to decrease the number of days, such as these, when it is possible to collect abalone without diving.

Abalone fishing.

Rainbow over abalone fishing.

That’s probably no longer possible. The abalone population has decreased so rapidly in recent years that the annual catch per person is now three abalone per day and 18 abalone per year per individual. It turns out THAT IS STILL TOO MANY. Today is a Saturday and an usually low tide just after 8 am, and that may have increased the number of people fishing, but you do the math: in a stretch of coast less than a mile long there were 15 people, in groups of 2-5 persons, fishing for abalone {that we saw). There could have been more. Each of the people we spoke to had their full quota of 3 abalone. That means 45 adult abalone are collected per mile, per day, as often as seven days a week. How long will there we abalone to harvest? Not very long by my calculation. The state of California has been monitoring the population of abalone and decreasing catch limits each year. What happens when a moratorium has to be put in place? Are there enough people to monitor this and prevent poaching? I doubt it. What should be done?

One of the many places where people hunt abalone.

California State Parks are the place to go.

California is full of state parks, something I did not know. Between Mendocino and Ft. Bragg are a string of parks that provide access to the coast. Some charge $8.00 to park. If you park elsewhere and walk in there’s no charge, but sometimes there is no alternative. We’ve started looking for cars parked by the side of the road in random locations. This usually means there is a trail to the shore, through a park. We’re also considering purchasing a season pass for the state park system. Over 3 months, it would be worth it. I have to check tomorrow, but I believe it costs the same as a fishing license.

We’ve spent two days exploring and fishing at one end of the park that surrounds our neighborhood. It doesn’t seem to have a name, and we could go back over and over, but there are so many parks……so little time. Birds, fish, wild flowers, beachcombing–I’m so busy!

A chiton from the beach. Beautiful, but they're a bit tough, like clam strips. — A chiton from the beach. Beautiful, but they’re a bit tough, like clam strips.

Massive driftwood. Can people take home driftwood from the beach if they can lift it?

Fishing.

The Bahamas Effect and second homes

We are in a gorgeous gated neighborhood, where each house has a view of the ocean, the spectacular Mendocino coast. Tonight as we walked down the street we realized that about 75% of the homes are unoccupied. Yes, it’s Sunday night and people may have gone back to the Bay Area for work, but we didn’t notice an influx of vehicles over the weekend. Where is everyone?

I call this the Bahamas Effect after our boating trip around the Sea of Abaco when all the lovely beach homes appeared to be empty–their owners were somewhere else working to pay for their lovely but unoccupied houses. People who actually live in the area full time tend to be packed together in tiny houses in tiny communities. It’s probably true to some extent for the Mendocino area, too. All those fabulous views have a high cost.

Mendocino at last! June 9, 2015

It wasn’t exactly the drive from Chicago to Mendocino that made us so happy to arrive. After all, we had wonderful stops along the way and saw all kinds of things. It was the unsettled nature of travel. Both of us enjoy new places, but we do not enjoy being on the road indefinitely. I think we would agree that 10 days of constant travel is about as much as we like. Yes, we were on the road for six weeks starting in January, and the trip we’ve just completed was under 2 weeks. We are happy to NOT be on the road for a while, and to enjoy being in a new place, but settled, for a while.

And what a place!