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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Wine country outside Redwood Valley, CA
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.
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” on the way from Redwood Valley to Mendocino.
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?
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.King of the beach.Massive driftwood. Can people take home driftwood from the beach if they can lift it?
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.
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!
We bought a Dungeness crab on the road to Mendocino. Jonathan sat on the deck and cracked it.
We had crab salad. Mmmm.
Today’s adventure was visiting beaches south of our house.
Reading the newspaper you wouldn’t think there were any small farmers or ranchers left in California–it’s all sprawling cities or thousand-acre farms. Driving from Petaluma to Mendocino, we passed through, and were surprised by, rural California alive and well. Small farms and ranches extended from Petaluma to the coast.
We had a free day before moving into our house in Mendocino, so we did what all visitors do in California–taste wine! We drove to Sonoma, visiting the Robledo Winery on the way there, and then we visited the Walt tasting room off the Sonoma plaza. What lovely wine, and enjoyable conversation. It was a great way to spend a very hot afternoon.
We left Twin Falls, Idaho, crossed that beautiful country and stayed overnight at the Nugget Casino in Reno, NV (June 6). The Casino was not particularly inviting, especially considering I don’t ordinarily gamble. Too much smoke.
We had a nice dinner at the oyster bar, however, and the room was a bargain compared to anything else in the area. In the morning we headed out, stopping to look out over the landscape. It was shocking to see that Washoe Lake is empty. It still appears blue, a regular lake, on the map, yet it is a black blot, not even marshy. Anyone who thinks the decrease in water in California isn’t serious should drive out and have a look.
Washoe Lake is empty.
We continued on to Lake Tahoe to see some of the shore that once belonged to the Haas family. It is too bad that the land was sold long ago–the shore of the lake is very beautiful. The area is popular in the summer and reminds me a lot of Lake George when we visited in the summer. Lots of motels, watersports, and traffic.
We stopped at the museum in Tahoe City to see the basket collection. There were some wonderful items. Some of the baskets were decorated with tiny black feathers, quail topknots. There used to be a lot…..of quail, considering the number of these tiny feathers around all those baskets. We ate our picnic lunch outside the museum.
By the end of the day we made it as far as Petaluma.
Llywindatravels 2026 