Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Fort Bragg

So first of all I just want to ask.... does anyone else feel like a brand new woman after something so simple as an eye brow waxing? If the answer is no than just pretend like I didn't say that.

But seriously, I feel like I have a whole new face.

Anywho! Last weekend Andrew and I packed up and went to Fort Bragg for a 3 day camping trip. I hadn't been to Fort Bragg since I was a wee little lass but Andrew claimed to be an expert on it. My friend Carina suggested that we accompany her and her boyfriend, Ivan, on a camping trip to Mackerrricher state park. I'd never been there before and since you had to reserve your campsite online I chose my blindly but I did a damn good job if I do say so myself! I was just trying to be close to Carina and the bathroom but our campsite ended up being huge. Which is good because I INSIST on a 7 person tent for the two of us on top of my screen tent house. And to top it off the weather was absolutely amazing. Amazing is a difficult temperature to acheive on the ocean as you probably know because it's unpredictable and usually windy. But mother nature was on our side last weekend!

Friday we just set up and then went to some expensive restaurant that Andrew wanted to try. I just had a salad since I don't eat seafood but it was delicious. Plus it left room for some creme brulee which I can NOT pass up if it's on the menu. Saturday the boys took off to do some fishing while Carina and I hit up some tide pools and collected glass on Glass Beach. When we first parked Carina thought that she had found the correct trail to the beach although I had my doubts from the get go. I didn't say anything though because a trail is a trail right?? WRONG. Our trail ended up snaking around through some 5 ft tall bushes for like an hour. At one point we were crawling on our hands and knees to get through the brush. I was laughing and telling Carina that we HAD to be on the wrong trail. I wish I had taken a picture. Anyway, we were on the wrong trail and there was a nice, wide, semi-paved one that led straight from the parking lot to the beach. But oh well... it gives us something to remember it by. Glass beach is called Glass Beach because back in the day people used to dump their garbage (including appliances, cars, etc) into the ocean. Over time the ocean broke the glass up, smoothed it out, and it has been depositing peices on Glass Beach every day since. I will post a picture so you can see the peices of glass mixed up with the rocks. After we got back to camp we went on a search for my famously late husband who always "loses track of time." When we finally pulled his happy ass out of the ocean we had lunch and then took a little drive to Mendocino. If you're a country fan you've probably heard of Willie Nelson sing songs about Mendocino. On the way back we stopped at this light house that I really wanted to see. It said the hike was only 1/2 mile but I'm pretty sure they lied. It was straight down hill one way and straight up the other and of course I didn't plan the stop so I was wearing my slippers without socks. My feet hurt so freaking bad by the time I got to the bottom I almost didn't make it back up. Plus I had my gimpy other half trucking along beside me.

Sunday was a perfect day to leave because the fog was rolling in and the wind was picking up. We left at about noon and I almost barfed about a million times with Andrew driving home. The road is switchbacks of 20-25 mph which he took at like 40. I was convinced that we were going to die and they'd find me with puke all over myself. Great way to go. But we made it and next time I'm having him drop me off at the Skunk Train station and I'm riding the train into Fort Bragg. He can pick me up at the Depot... if he makes it alive.

Glass Beach

2 comments:

Carina said...

Ivan was driving the same way! I swear I put finger imprints on the bottom of my seat while he was driving!

And, I liked our trail to glass beach :) okay...not really, but I learned my lesson...there was another trail.

Anonymous said...

Cool! I always wanted to pick up some beach glass. All you would pick up around here though is seaweed. Wait...I take that back...now since the hurricane hit you might actually get stuff from homes...