The Mendocino Coast

Paul Bunyan and Babe at the Trees of Myster
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When calculating our second day of travels, we had no way of knowing how much construction we would run into on Highway 101 and Highway 1 nor did we know Elias would come down with the flu, but neither did we have any way of knowing how enchanting the Mendocino coast would be…”enchanting” was the word that came to both of us that only begins to describe the beauty of that part of the California coast…

We departed from the Redwoods around midday on Highway 101 and managed to take in the highlights of the local tourist attractions, including the large local elk herd that lunched on the lawn of a deserted logging village; the Trees of Mystery guarded by the giant statue of Paul Bunyan, who talked to our children, and his blue ox Babe; the One-Log House, a mobile home made of a single 32-foot redwood log, & Confusion Hill, where the water runs uphill.

Talking to Paul
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Passing through Eureka, we saw the Mom and Pop motel (Hilltop Hotel) where Adam and I stopped on our honeymoon road trip eight years ago. At the time it was brand-new with each room a view room overlooking the water and town.

At Willits, CA we cut across on State Road 20, a switch-back-filled road through the mountains, to reach Highway 1 and the coast. Since we had a large bag of laundry that had to be done before we could camp that night after the previous night’s sickness, we made a stop in Fort Bragg at a local laundromat where it cost $5.00 to wash a single load; but the $1.50 price tag on organic strawberries at the grocery store made up for it! We were told by the locals that Fort Bragg was the only town on that whole section of the coast to have a laundromat.

The Elk Herd
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The next little village along Highway 1 was Mendocino, where Murder She Wrote was filmed, an idyllic town that tempted us to stay for days - but we had a reservation at Salt Point State Park 40-something miles down the coast, and we didn’t want to set up camp in the dark.

Though the narrow curves of 1 prevented us from making highway speed time and reaching our site before dark, we did get to enjoy the Mendocino coast in the light of a beautiful sunset. Not much more than cows dotted the landscape of the windswept hills (and our children are saying hello to all the cows for Katryn), other than a handful of miniscule villages - so small they didn’t even have gas stations - Russian orthodox domes from the late-1800’s Russian immigrant population who farmed the area, & Sea Ranch, a vacation home community designed and built in the mid-1960’s by several famous architects who wanted to show that development didn’t need to negatively impact the natural beauty of the landscape. All of the homes of Sea Ranch were built into the landscape with muted natural materials on 5000 acres, half of which was preserved as open land. Unfortunately it is all private, so we had to simply enjoy the aesthetics from the highway.

Salt Point State Park
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Finally just after dark, we pulled into Salt Point State Park. The rangers had left the check-in station already, so we simply pulled into the first tent area to find a spot. Since there were only 4 other parties camping in that first loop, we picked the first empty site we came to that looked close to the lighted bathroom set on the hill in the middle of the loop. When we opened our doors to get out and begin setting up our tent, we realized that it was cold and extremely windy. Adam and I left the children in the warm car and began to set up the tent. Shivering and tired we got it set up, only to realize that the tent was going to whip in the wind all night long at that spot.

Salt Point Cliffs
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So Adam walked a bit further up the loop and found a site that seemed to be a bit more sheltered from the wind, and we decided that rather than take the whole tent down again and re-set it up - we would simply pull up the stakes and walk it up the hill to the next site. There we were - in the cold darkness - marching up the hill with our 10 x 17 tent between us! With the tent staked down in the new site, we dressed the children in the car in their RemiRoos, hats, etc., carried them one by one to the bathroom, and then back to the tent to bundle them up in their sleeping bags. We didn’t bother to get anything else out of the car but our sleeping bags, Thermarests, and warm clothes - and crashed for the night. Elias had another rough night, and Adam began to feel the beginnings of stomach junk too; but in-between we all slept hard and stayed warm.

Salt Point Cliffs
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At daylight the next morning, we woke to what has to be one of the most beautiful camping spots ever…Our tent was set on the cliff against a backdrop of stark wind-shapen pines and redwoods and the Pacific. Blue as far as we could see…where sky and water melded…for miles.

http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=453