We went south to Redway, California to visit a college friend of mine.
Still pouring rain. We stayed at Dean Creek Resort because it is at the bottom of the road Kay and David live on. It is a funky place with mostly full time residents in trailers with tarps over the top. It is in a redwood grove by the Eel river. Our spot had a lake around the door. We would not recommend this park, but it was convenient for this trip.
We drove up a long, narrow, branching dirt road up to their lovely house in the rain and they fed us lunch and dinner and we visited. Driving back down in the dark, rain and fog was challenging. I went to college with Kay and it was fun to see them. The upper part of the Dean Creek resort. Tarps with tires holding them down.
Welcome to our trailerhood sign was at the resort, we hiked on the Redwood Grove trail the next day and at a spot in the trail that was washed out was this Keep walking cupcakes sign. Us Cupcakes had to duck under a fence to get around the washout. This yellow blob is a huge witches butter fungus on a dead branch, below is a camillia blossom near the Redwood Grove estate. Kay brought left over turkey for sandwiches and a picnic for lunch.
One of many small falls on the trail. Lots of mushrooms. I like the last one - a tiny one growing out of a small fir cone.
Most of the trail was through a very lush forest alternating with big green open fields. In this spot there were signs on the trees, I enlarged them below- Deeper into another part of the the forest. Lots of wildlife. In this shot there are three deer on the left and three wild turkeys on the right. It did not rain and was almost sunny, mostly just brighter. Nice day to be out. We came back to the bus and had left over smoked turkey for dinner.
We left Dean Creek and drove down to Fort Bragg. We drove through Richarsons Grove of redwoods on the way. The width of the road is determined by the placement of the redwoods. Very narrow in places with no shoulder and if you wander off the road you hit a redwood. At Willits-Heart of Mendocino county we turned right and took a narrow, winding road down to Fort Bragg. Our first stop was at Glass Beach- the reason I wanted to come here. The beach was the dump from 1920-1959. Then they cleaned up the trash and turned it into a park. The trash is gone but the glass and bits of ceramic were ground down by the ocean and washed back up as beach glass. Very cool looking. There used to be more and larger pieces but people have carted most of them away. They looked really cool in the sun.
Here is a close up of the rocks, shells and glass in the shade. I have a couple of the larger pieces in my hand to give you some scale.
The beach was very beautiful too. Mostly cliffs and big rocks. Lots of tide pools, but there was not much in them.
This is ice plant growing on the dunes above the cliffs. John found this abalone shell, but would not let me take it for a basket because you are not supposed to take things off this beack. Ice plant, yellow flowers blowing in the wind, a warning sign that says Dangerous cliffs, stay back, a California poppy and a flowering bush I found in town.
Coast shots, with flowers in the fore ground and in the second one the black dots are birds perching on the cliff.
Sunset with a small hole in the rock below. The baptist church looked nice in the evening light.
Our last stop was the North Coast Brewery where John had a Red Seal and raw oysters.
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