Fort Bragg Tour (Northern California) September 2012

একদিন দল বেঁধে ক'জনে মিলে,

   যাই ছুটে খুশিতে হারাতে,
এই পথ খুঁজে -সব ভয় মুছে   
কেউ তো জানে না, মনের ঠিকানা...

P r o l o g u e

Day 0: (Aug 31^st, 2012 - Friday)

This weekend was the long weekend since Monday, September 3rd was the labor day in US. We planned to visit "Fort Bragg, CA" this weekend - starting on Friday evening and coming back on Sunday night. Monday we would take complete rest to re-charge our battery.

I left from office a bit early - already completed packing of our stuff last night. This time we have a new member with us who took the lion's share of our luggage. We were altogether seven (7) people. Indra graciously agreed to take their Honda (Odyssey) minivan - so we did  not have to rent any car this time. Last time we went together to visit Niagara was almost 4 years (July/2008) back. Now there are 2 more kids with us!  Sure, life has changed a lot!

We started our journey after 6 PM. Indra picked up us from our Home.  I thought seating arrangement might create little problem, but apparently not. The minivan was big enough for us. We had two light strollers, 2 + 2 = 4 standard cabin luggage, plus many other medium sized bags - but still were able to sit comfortably. Parama, Tirai (6 years) and Titir (1.8 years) took 3 seats in the middle row. Debjani and Adi (11 months) were on the back. Indra and myself were on the front. Indra was driving and I was enjoying my long lost opportunity of watching the roads & scenery as co-driver in every bit!! 

I felt guilty, not only for I didn't have to drive a single mile, but also sitting in the middle seats should not make someone feel much comfortable... the journey may not be enjoyable too!

We took I-280-North towards San Francisco. Not much traffic was on I-280N - might be because of the coming long weekend, plus Friday evening. Weather was already looking better than the last few days with clear blue sky and lots of sunshine, less cloudy.  Generally July-October is the busiest months in Fort Bragg, but there is something to see and do year-round.

Fort Bragg was 163 miles from San Francisco via Highway 101– roughly 3.5 hours drive. After crossing Golden Gate Bridge if we continue towards north for approximately 112 miles to Cloverdale, we have two choices: turn off onto Highway 128 West through the Anderson Valley, or continue on Highway 101 to Willits and take Highway 20 West.

We stopped at Shell Gas station in Cloverdale city (1194 S Cloverdale Blvd, Cloverdale,  CA 95425) for a 30 minutes break to check on the kids and refueling our car. 

We were too lucky to start our journey on a full-moon night. The shiny silver moonlight was beaming down the whole horizon with so much grace. I could hardly remember last when I was outside on road in a full moon night. Looking at the full moon with its miraculous beauty I was amazed... everything in this world are creations by God, from God... all created for us. But how often do we cherish each and every moment of our life that we have been blessed with? 

I stayed static in the car rushing away on the countryside like road, watching the 'White Globe' fill one-third of the sky and bringing abreast the deep poet any one of us have into our soul, no matter education or knowledge!

We passed the Ukiah municipal airport and decided to have our Friday night's dinner at Denny's (@105 Pomeroy Rd, Ukiah, CA 95482) in Ukiah (central) city. The restaurant was almost on US-101N, but we took an early exit and came there thru downtown. The roads were here much lonely compared to bay area - we saw couple of police cars patrolling. 

This is a somewhat different kind of Denny's which expected to have a reservation! But we did not have to wait long. 

Both food and service were quite good and prompt here. Tirai solved the whole scrambled word puzzle (almost). It was already 9.30 PM, so we had to call our hotel's (Best Western) front desk to inform that we would not be reaching there before 11 PM.

After dinner we continued our journey. We relied on GPS and took the (un)popular route via Highway 20 west from downtown Willits (132 miles north of San Francisco) to Fort Bragg on the Mendocino Coast. It was a 25-mile drive through farmland, mountain views and redwood forests. But the road was more than a bit winding. Okay! that’s an understatement. The dense fog on that night (at 11 PM) made all the sharp turns on  Highway-20 almost invisible and dangerous to drive, even with 20 miles speed. As it got dark & foggy, the road also got narrower and more difficult to navigate. The massive redwood trees (earth's tallest trees - 300+ ft. tall and 12+ ft. in diameter), growing together so closely in dense forests, completely blocked out the moonlight and made the whole area absolute dark, cool and foggy.  We were damn scared with 3 kids in their deep sleep sitting in the car !   

Day time - Delightful & Majestic

Night time - Scary & Foggy

Watch the video (5.5 min): Here

Two hundred million years ago, in the Jurassic era two giants reigned: Dinosaurs and Redwoods. The dinosaurs vanished, but the Redwoods somehow managed to survive the catastrophe and have gone on to survive fires, floods, windstorms, droughts, and earthquakes. As the oldest living creatures on the planet, redwoods truly are giant survivors from a time of giants and serving as a symbol of what life on this planet. Their remnants are now found only in California.

Ultimately we reached our destination, Best Western Lodge(100 North Main Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437) around 11:30 PM. The front desk office was already closed. They put our room keys (#423, #424) under the door mat and closed the office.

This is the first time Adi needed to sleep outside of his Crib and he did not like it at all. So lots of effort had to make to put him to sleep in our Bed. We had to stop talking completely and had to walk in our own room like thieves... very slowly... without making any audible noise!!

I had a severe headache and finally went to sleep around 2 AM.

Day 1: Sep 1st, 2012 - Saturday
Botanical Garden & Skunk Train Ride

Next morning we woke up little late and had the complementary breakfast (bread/butter, boiled eggs, banana, waffle, juice, muffins & tea/coffee) at our Hotel cafeteria around 9:40 AM. 

Then we started driving towards "Botanical Gardens" (18220 N Highway 1, Fort Bragg, CA 95437) around 11 AM.


Botanical Gardens (Saturday, Sep 01)
It was the only public garden in the continental United States directly in front of an ocean. This is a huge garden, although you can't tell by looking at its entrance - over 45 acres of forest, garden and ocean views.  

When we entered the garden it was a bit chilly, cloudy and it looked like the standard garden - variety of plants & trees identified by signs, winding paths, etc. But then we happened to reach the vegetable garden, where they were always harvesting something new. We saw huge pumpkin & squash, many apple trees, and smelled a wheelbarrow full of fennel. 

This garden spans across 47 acres with so many rare plants, blooming flowers, breathtaking landscape, cleansing fresh air and calming sounds of breaking waves.  I think all of us enjoyed the botanical gardens much more than any of us expected. 

It was beginning of September, so the dahlias were in bloom - one of my most favorite flowers. Everyone was taking pictures of their amazing colors.

The Gardens have an amazing variety of plants but perhaps the best part was the walk through the forest to the ocean bluffs. 

There were a variety of paths... all leading back to the coastal bluffs overlooking rugged beauty and pounding waves.  

After a short walk through a mini forest of trees, the path opened up to a view of the amazing rocky coastline.  

There was a small cliff house facing the angry sea. It's a delightful place to sit and watch the waves crashing below. I felt like I was 100 miles away from civilization. 

We spent about 3 hours there but I hardly think we saw even 60% of it.  I hope to make it back there some time. There was also a nursery near the entrance where you could buy plants. Parama bought a little orchid. 

It was almost 1:30 PM and we had a booking for the Skunk Train ride at 3:30 PM, so decided to have our lunch at local Round Table Pizza  (@740 South Main St, Fort Bragg, CA). 

One large Chicken Gourmet Pizza together with chicken wings & sodas were enough for us. 

Skunk Train (Saturday, Sep 01)

After finishing lunch we started driving to Skunk Train station at 100 West Laurel Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437.

In Mendocino County, the Skunk Train was touted by local guide books and websites as one of the must do things. It's a skunk by name, but not by scent. I guess it got it's name from the early says when folks could SMELL the steam train before they saw it.  In fact if you aren't into mobile activities such as hiking, wine tasting and/or have little kid(s) then perhaps this train ride should be one of the popular must-dos on your agenda.

For the half day Northspur trip, the train departs from the Fort Bragg Skunk Train depot and heads eastward averaging 30-ish mph (rain or shine).  It's a 4 hour, round trip train ride, with a stop over at Northspur. The ticket fare on this long weekend was quite costly - $70 per adult and $40 per kid (older than 2 years) !!

There was a delay of ~20 minutes, so I spent some time to buy some mementos from the local Gift shop where I collected our tickets from the counter. The engine boggy of the train was being swapped, so we had to wait in the queue more than 15 minutes before we were allowed to ride on the train. 

We were lucky enough to ride on long weekend without facing too much crowd. The weather could not have been better, and the views of the redwoods were fantastic.

The more enjoyable parts were when we stepped out into the open air section of the train so that we could get to soak in the scenery, nothing but greenery, forest, and of course the occasional bodies of water, waterfalls, and other relics of the past. 

The train cars were old and squeaky but that's part of the nostalgic appeal. 

The ride was amazing and yes, we saw more redwoods than had ever imagined.  The train sounds and the forest smells were very intoxicating. The open car gave us an up-close look at the incomparable beauty of North Coast forest. It was a relaxing scenic trip. 

The train ride was really awesome in such beautiful surroundings. I spent lot of my time in the open area section by taking pictures and enjoying the scenery.  The train conductor gave a great narration of the interesting history in the area.

The round trip from Fort Bragg to Northspur included a roughly 45+ min stop (at Northspur) where you basically would have a picnic/BBQ in the midst of wood. 

Food price was included in ticket cost. We stopped in a covered and rustic picnic spot, where food was being prepared for us. 

The menu included bread, salad, grilled seasoned tri-tip, chicken with bbq sauce, corn, hot beans, and potato salad. Dessert was vanilla ice cream with Raspberry sauce spooned over the top. I wish I could pack my own food for dinner since the food items for BBQ-dinner were kind of junk and cold. The stop for dinner was around 45-minutes – luckily we did not have too many people waiting for the dinner.

Fortunately we brought the jacket with hoodie as the weather was unpredictable. Life was simpler around these parts. We tried to take the time to slow down and enjoy, spent more time on the open air observation desk of the train, just like the folks in the old days. Wish I could bring a towel or a plastic sheet to sit on in open air area of the train.  

The train ride was fun (a couple hours - not too long, not too short) - the fresh air felt great - beautiful sightseeing and rich history. I thought there would be some kind of live entertainment or music, but there was no such event on this weekend.

After dinner we boarded the train and headed back to Fort Bragg.  The return trip was little boring since it was getting more and more dark, but still I saw people were enjoying the scenery on the open air section. 

Few famous lines from my childhood poem book suddenly popped up in my head...

  "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

    But I have promises to keep,
      And miles to go before I sleep,
        And miles to go before I sleep..."

The seats in the train could be turned into opposite direction so that we could face forward or backwards, but we didn't. 

After we returned to Fort Bragg  the temperature seemed further lowered down. We rushed to our car from train station. We skipped that night's dinner since we already had too much (junk) food in the BBQ dinner.

Day 2: Sep 2nd, 2012 - Sunday (MacKerricher State Park & Glass Beach)

Last night we had better sleep. Adi as usual was not much happy to share the same bed with us. Bad thing was he felled down from the bed when we were busy preparing food for him and got a reddish spot on his left side forehead.

Sunday morning we woke up little early. Adi took a quick bath, then we finished our breakfast - same menu, same time, same place. Today they ran out of tea bags, also boiled eggs were not really full-boiled, unlike lastday !!

After breakfast we went back to our room and then checked out. Today was Sunday - the  last day of our trip... feeling little sad. 

We decided to visit MacKerricher State Park and Glass Beach. Glass beach was not in our original agenda, but we heard it was worth visiting and got the direction from the front desk lady at Hotel. We started driving after 11 AM to MacKerricher State Park. It was very close by, approximately 2.5 miles from our hotel. 

Today Parama was driving, so Indra had to sit in the middle, like a sandwich between Tirai & Titir. I offered to switch my place, but that didn't click.

MacKerricher State Park (Sunday, Sep 02)

At one time MacKerricher State Park was  part of the Mendocino Indian Reservation. It has miles of beaches, long tide pools, and a wheelchair-accessible nature trail. The park area itself is open year-round with 140 campsites for tent. 

The Ranger at the park entrance was quite friendly and explained clearly the best locations to visit here. There was a huge gray whale's skeleton at the park visitor center, just opposite to the information booth near entrance area. Locals and Tourists are invited to paint the gray whale skeleton.  It has been several years since the skeleton has been painted.

MacKerricher State Park is a kid-friendly, great place to observe sea lions, whales, and it also provides a habitat for several rare plant species. Great strolling the boardwalk with wonderful views of the cliffs, rocks and ocean, seals, charming and tame ground squirrels, variety of lovely birds. And the best part was no parking fee, neither any entrance fee !!

Adi was all covered up. Parama forgot to bring a jacket for Titir and had to go back to parking lot to bring it. I was feeling cool weather much refreshing... not that harmful.

The boardwalk to the ocean was spectacular. We took couple of boardwalks to the beach, with benches for sit-me-downs. It seemed we were on a private trail !

The wildflowers and grasses along the way made the walk a delight... and then came the ocean views and breezes... really lovely and refreshing. 

Laguna Point hosts organized whale watches during the gray whale migration season. The observation deck at the end of Laguna Point Boardwalk overlooks offshore rocks that harbor a large resident population of Harbor Seals. 

We did see couple of sea-lions enjoying their swim. Wish I could have brought my binocular.

There were trails that connect to the old haul road and one can walk for miles, all the way into Fort Bragg if one is ambitious. Many people was taking bike ride. Horses were allowed on the beach. Considering long weekend the park was quiet, even though the campground seemed to be full. 

In the parking lot there were lots of seagulls on the nearly grassland - they did not fear human and could be aggressive if you would offer food to them. I saw many people were getting ready here for scuba/free diving - most of them were Chinese.

Our next destination was Glass Beach...

Glass Beach (Sunday - Sep 02)
Glass beach was only few minutes away from Fort Bragg town center. 

Finding a near by parking spot was never easy, but we luckily got a good spot. Titir fall asleep in the car, so Indra decided to stay with her. The rest of us started walking towards the beach. The road to the beach was too dusty & sandy and not at all good for our light stroller - we should have brought stroller with big wheels.

Glass Beach was an unusual beach and well worth a look to see the way nature had reclaimed a garbage dump. 

The ocean received trash and returned it to us as shimmering treasures! It was the city's old garbage dump back in the first half of the 20th century. Now wave action has broken up bottles and jars and the beach glistens with little pieces of polished sea glass. There is a local movement encouraging people not to pillage the glass, but it is hard to resist.

Walking on the polished glass was a hoot for the kids. We did find bits and pieces of glass in different colors and Tirai was excited to collect many polished stones. Some of those were light green colored and were glittering on sunlight like the real emeralds.

The beach was a little crowded, not completely peaceful after a long walk to get there. It was also pretty rocky - difficult to get down with infants so we were very watchful at our step. Parama brought a beach mat to sit on the beach. We sat there for some time. The view was great with nice cool, relaxing breeze.

Indra came there after a while, but we did not stay there long. Titir was in a bit off-mood after waking up from her nap, also Adi was trying to grab sand grains with his little hands and started rubbing on his face.

On our way back to parking lot I had to carry the empty stroller. It was difficult to roll it on the sandy road - so Adi was with Debjani/Parama.

We took some time to remove the sands from our dresses and shoes, then decided to have lunch at Denny's (again !!) at "901 N Main St, Fort Bragg, CA 95437". 

We were about to take our seat at the corner, suddenly we heard a familiar voice. It was Abhijit & his family (Mahua and Gia). They were also on the same trip like us and having lunch there!! 

That was a really sweet surprise !!  We decided to join them and started chatting like we met after so many years.

After lunch we decided to start our journey back to Home since it was almost 4 PM and we  wanted to cross all the winding roads in daylight.

In Fort Bragg downtown we stopped by a gift shop, "Pacific Glassworks" to buy some mementos. Adi fell asleep, so I was with him in the car with the car-fan was turned on. After Indra came back I went to the gift shop and bought some little stuff and a nice winter jacket for Adi from another shop, "Oh! Baby".

Returning back to car we found that the car battery was completely exhausted and we could not start the car engine !!  It was again another tensed experience. 

Indra had the AAA membership and contacted them immediately. AAA said they would need at least 30 minutes to reach there. We had nothing but to anxiously wait for them. I walked to nearby gas stations and car servicing stores - but most of those were already closed though it was not even 5 PM - may be because of long weekend.

Anyway, we were lucky, the AAA guy showed up in 15 minutes, around 5:10 PM. He took just a single minute to jump-start our car engine and then almost vanished in the air. We felt so much relieved then !!

The car had half-tank gas and its battery needed at least 45 minutes to get fully charged - so we kept on driving. This time we did not make the same mistake by taking Highway-20, rather took Highway-128 East. This road also had many sharp turns and winding, but not like Highway-20. Also now we had some daylight, so we safely crossed the winding road before sunset.

Passing through Anderson Valley from the Mendocino Coast on California Highway-128 to famous Boonville, we encountered miles of shaded forests. Boontling is a dialect created approximately 100 years ago by locals trying to keep information from outsiders, "Boont" can still be heard in local establishments among a select group.  While approximately half of the youth attending school in this region are native English speakers and the other half are native Spanish speakers, long time locals may charlie ball you or hoot if you don't harp boont (locals may embarrass you or laugh if you don't speak Boontling).

After a hour long drive we stopped at a Shell gas station - now the car must need some gasoline. Parama decided to drive the rest of the journey. I switched my place with Debjani. We wanted to have some coffee at Starbucks. The GPS took us a nearby coffee shop, but it was already closed, might be because of the long weekend. So we started going back home directly without any further break. 

The rest of the journey was uneventful and peaceful, only near Golden Gate bridge US-101 became too much foggy and crowded. All the cars were galloping with 10 mile speed. After the toll gate, traffic was better. We took I-280-South since we needed a ride back to Cupertino.

Adi was crying a lot - I tried to pacify him with food and milk, but apparently he needed a diaper change which we figured out later after reaching home.

E p i l o g u e

The journey finally came to the end around 11:15 PM. It was quite fun, refreshing and enjoyable tour - irrespective of the fact that travelling with infant is never easy, in any country, any time!

Photo links of this tour:

Google Plus Link
Picasa Web Link
(both contains same set of photos...)

Car Journey in Night - Highway 20

Kuntal ©2012