California's Forgotten Coast

What a change from the Bay Area!  We ended up in a place called Albion.  It is not even a town.  It is marked by the Albion river and is about 5-10 minutes South of the tiny town of Mendocino.  We stayed at a place called The Albion River Campground.  The area around here looks a lot like New England and it is COLD!  It averages year round temperatures in the low 60's.  It RARELY ever even reaches 80 degrees in the summer.  It is commonly called the "California Forgotten Coast" because it is so sparsely populated and is largely not visited in large numbers compared with other popular destination sites in California.  We are glad we made this place a stop on our "journey!"  Enjoy!

This is a view from the West side of the Albion River bridge.  This is a great shot of the cove and the beach that is in front of the campground that we stayed. Heidi and I walked down to the beach to watch the huge Pacific ocean waves crash into the cove and onto the beach as the sun was setting.  We had a harbor seal pop up in the surf and say "hello" about 20 yards from us.  I was kicking myself for not bring my camera phone!  That memory is burnt into my minds eye, watching Heidi perched on a washed up huge redwood as the waves crashed up on the side of it!  Ya can't manufacture or buy that experience.  Thank you , God!

This is a view of the East side of the bridge.  You can see the Albion River on the upper left of the picture and the campground in the lower center.  This is where we camped for the week at Albion River Campground.  You can see the beach and the cove thru the bridge.  As you can see it is not much of a walk from the campsites.  The campground is a former lumber mill that operated up until the Great Depression.

This is a picture of the little town of Mendocino that is just north of Albion Cove, where we stayed.  Mendocino was founded as a lumber town in the early 1800's and was one of many logging towns to pop up along the "fog belt" of Northern California and on into Oregon.  The "fog belt" is roughly a shoreline to 3 miles inland by several hundred mile long band that supports the growth of huge groves of massive redwood trees. These towns fueled the insatiable demand for lumber, during the explosive growth of San Francisco, as a result of the discovery of gold in roughly 1849 and the Great Fire of 1906, which destroyed over 75 percent of San Francisco.  Many loggers moved to California from the Northeast US and Canada to these "new" logging towns.  As a result, they built homes and the town in the style they were accustomed to from back East.  So, these towns, like Mendocino, look just like what you might find in, say, Maine or Prince Edward Island.  When the Gold Rush fizzled out,  followed later by the Great Depression, many towns like Mendocino simply folded up.  Mendocino was "re-born" as a mecca for artists in the early 1970's and was placed upon the National Registry of Historic places.  It has been restored to it's former glory towhat it might have looked like in it's glory days.  Hollywood has used Mendocino to depict fictional New England towns in many movies and TV shows.  An example of such a TV show, was "Murder, She Wrote".  

We were lucky enough to have visited Mendocino on a day that they had a "farmers market".  There were plenty of cool stuff to try and look at.  Hailey's charm gets her a free plant from the nice folks at Flowers by the Sea.  She got a "rock plant".  It looks just like a pebble and a bloom sprouts out of it.  Weird looking and requires very little care or water. They are an online business as well and will ship stuff to you.  You can visit them at: Flowers by the Sea

I did mention that Mendocino was an artist community?  Well, it is also attractive to Eco-environmentalist and a very "progressive" crowd, which  I do not prescribe to their "world-view" but, I do respect their rights to say what they like...in fact, while I served in the Air Force, I was willing to put my life on the line for the rights of freedom of speech.  I do not believe many people of the "progressive" crowd realize that there really are people out there that want to eradicate all of us and ironically, the "progressives" are more than likely the first folks that our enemies would silence. And contrary to popular belief, our engagement in the world is NOT causing the creation of our enemies.  As a matter of fact, at the time of 9/11 we were the least engaged in the Middle East of anytime in recent history. The mantra of "we caused it" is akin to blaming the victim. Okay, sorry, I'll get off my political soap box!  You can't walk too far without seeing a political statement around these parts, so, I'll add mine!  Peace thru superior firepower, man!

A short drive from our campsite, we visited this preserve located on a beach cove.  Very nice.  It is one of many such parks slated for closure starting July 1st due to the budget woes of California.  Way to go California, sarcasm intended.

The beautiful cove at Jug Handle.

We found this guy on the beach at Jug Handle.  How neat to see these guys up close and in the wild.  This is a harbor seal and the girls named it; "Oscar" for some reason.   I don't know if it was male or female but, it's a "he" as far as the girls were concerned.

The girls and I climb up on the bluffs overlooking Jug Handle cove.  

On the way back  on the trail in Jug Handle, the girls find a neat little "hideout".  Heidi poses to the entrance to what they dubbed the "cave to Terabitha" in honor of the movie; "A Bridge to Terabithia".

The girls coaxed me into the "cave" entrance and "WOW" it opened up inside under a massive twist of trees.  It was the ultimate, natural tree house.  Hailey shows it off to me.

There are flowers EVERYWHERE, to the delight of Hailey.  Here she shows off her adornment of Momma's hair.

Back at our campsite, the girls go down to the Albion river and are curious about the local catch of the day.  These guys were smitten with the girls and they walked away with a Ziploc bag of fillets!  

This guy was right behind where the fishermen were cleaning fish and he would gladly "steal" left overs and scraps.  The fishermen said they have seen him here for years and have dubbed him "One-eyed Willie" because of his one good eye.  He certainly was friendly to the delight of the girls!

We take a 4 mile round trip hike down a trail in nearby Russian Gulch.  It was a beautiful day and we only ran into two other folks.

The Team Breitmann gals horse around on the trail.

Hailey, our eternal "tom boy", picks up these giant slug like snails that were everywhere!  Fascinating guys!

This waterfall is what we were hiking down to see.  It was like a fairy tale world.

Yours truly, down at the waterfall.  It was COLD water!

Hailey poses with a huge redwood that fell into the waterfall.

The formula for fun = kids + water!

Heidi and Hailey proceed to get soaking wet!  The hike back served to be not as pleasant for these two soaking and cold campers!  Ah, life lessons!

It's all fun and games until....We got back to our car parked at the trail head, looking forward to grilling up those fresh fish and some pork chops that I left marinating in the frig.  Well..as I turned the key...nothing...click...click.  Uggh!  We are in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone services.  So, I hoof it up to a primitive campsite and find a couple to see about "jumping my car".  I break out my cables and hook em up and....click....click....waft of smoke from the right back corner of the engine bay!  What the..?!  It seems to be emanating from the starter.  Uggh!  So, it isn't a battery issue. So, what now!?  Well, the couple takes Stacey up to the entrance and she uses a land-line at the Ranger Station to call for road side assistance.  Well....over two hours later we get our car and us extricated.  Oh, and....we can't get it fixed for two days!  Oh, and it is over $400.  Yikes!  Oh, remember...no one escapes trouble!  With any luck we will make it to Redwoods National Park by mid-week....hopefully!