Mendocino, Fort Bragg and the road thus far

Thank you all for your responses to my last blog it made it much more fun! I think I will settle on Emmett's suggestion of naming the bus Maanderwagen. I will officially be calling Maanderwagen names like The Maan, Maandy, Maander. Thank you all for your contributions :)

Ok the last entry I made I said I tested Maander a great deal. That was nothing compared to what we went through yesterday. Now I am going to talk a little backwards because I have yet to talk of Mendo and Fort Bragg but this needs to be said. This last stretch of highway 1 was unquestionably the most difficult. We were right on the shoreline for the initial stint out of Fort Bragg but then pretty quickly we were in the Redwood Forest. I was thankful because the wind was pushing Maander around quite a bit. We traded off windy conditions for suggested 10mph turns and huge grades up and down. I swear I rarely was in 4th gear because I was either climbing the hill or keeping myself from overspeeding down a hill. This is NOT hyperbole!!

Back to a more linear way of talking about our trip :P

So once we had our Breakfast, after using the Bed we stayed at, we went for an amble about town and the coast. We stopped into a Jam and Preserves store and this very out-going gentleman greets us from behind the sample area. He is talking it up with all the customers and trying to charm the pants off of anyone who would listen. He had a beatnik look to him with black rimmed glasses a fedora and a vest. We sample a few preserves and Anna mentions we need mustard as well as mentioning we are travelers. He says he knows many like us. It seems travelers, hitchhikers, and people voluntarily homeless like to come to Mendo. He says if we guess his state of origin we can have a $10 jar of mustard for free. His clue - the state Jonny Appleseed is from. I first guess New York he says close and I continue. I start naming states all around there and he is like ok last try and I say Massachusetts. He is like big winner take it. I was quite surprised he gifted us with a pricey jar of Mustard.

Us with the free mustard! And I trimmed up!

Water tower and Kelley house Museum

The beach before we descended down

Nice church in Mendo

 We then meandered down to the beach where there was a plethora of driftwood. We had the ocean crashing on one side then probably 40' max of beach then a large cliff side. An amazing thing was that there was fresh water seeping out of the cliff rock onto the beach. You look to one side you see ocean and waves crashing the other gentle fresh water trickling down rocks. It seemed poetic.

Self pic cheesin'

Really cool part where the ocean broke a hole in the rocks

Beautiful Abalone shell

Gazing/Reflecting

We grabbed some supplies from the hardware store and grocery and made lunch. After lunch we decided it was about time to make our exit to Fort Bragg. Not a long drive I think maybe 25 miles if I remember correctly. We drive into town just a bit then turn back to where we spotted the visitor's center. The lady there starts telling us all the sites to see and the first place she says, "We have a beach you can go to. It's called Glass Beach and it is where the city dump used to be!"

I thought to myself how odd that she would mention that part about the history of the beach. Now we knew that Fort Bragg would be more industrial not quite as romantic as Mendocino, but man they weren't kidding. Maybe it was a combination of the weather and the change of scenery but Fort Bragg just felt dreary and had no appeal to it. We walk to Glass Beach not too far off and as we are getting closer and closer to the beach the wind is coming off the water pushing us away. I almost felt like the ocean was communicating with us. We get to the beach and there were actually many tourists there exploring it. However, there really wasn't much to see or discover.

Biggest known Redwood in Mendo county... Lets chop it down!
- Says stupid ppl from 1943

This is glass beach.... yeah....

We then walked down the touristy, historic district I believe. The shops were in nice buildings and they had very eclectic stores. We stop into a handmade co-op consignment place and see what they had. We then go to an antique shop where the store owner was just hanging out behind the counter reading his newspaper and smoking cigarettes. The store had a bunch of old stuff the seemed mildly valuable and I just felt like this guy had been doing this for so long that it was like he was just barely procuring anything of value and selling just enough to get by for the month and he was completely fine with this prospect. With the continued smoking in this shop, it created a very interesting smell in the store. It wasn't a bad smell but felt aged and rustic.

$10 bucks to someone who correctly guesses
 the town we were at when we took this

j/k

We return to Maander and make a long pit stop at Starbucks before boondocking across the street in a Safeway parking lot. The next day, Sunday, we get up and head towards a church I looked up the day before, First Baptist Church of Fort Bragg. We get there at 9am not knowing when the service would start. We see it starts at 10:30am and there is coffee too! We are like cool! and decide to go for a walk to kill time till service. On our walk we run into Lighthouse Foursquare Church. Same starting time and it has a potluck afterwards!! Bingo we jump on that. Service was nice especially the worship. The Pastor spoke about Veterans' Day, he was a veteran himself. He said some things in regards to speaking in tongues I didn't agree with and he kept cutting to videoclips of some patriotic song and pictures of soldiers and battle. Not to disrespect veterans, but it was ad nauseum and felt cliche. We met some of the people then headed to the potluck.

Attending the potluck we witnessed that Lighthouse is heavily involved with the homeless/poor people of the Fort Bragg area. Essentially between all the churches in the area a homeless person could have at least one meal everyday except maybe Saturday. They were involved in rehabilitation and it just seemed like they truly had a heart for the homeless in the area.


We hit the road and settled on stopping somewhere near Garberville to break up the trip to Eureka. Like I said before not an easy drive. We stop by the redwood tree that you can drive through (they cut a big hole in a redwood essentially). Maander was too tall to fit so we had to settle for driving around it and then taking pictures by it. We then stop at an RV campsite in Myers Flats.

Hwy 1 Scenery

That's a lot of wood

OMG we are IN a tree!

Reflections on the trip thus far:




We are now one week into our adventure and I feel it necessary to reflect on the journey thus far. As of this very moment I am actually feeling many different emotions, some good, some bad. I loved our start to the trip meeting the locals in Winters and love many of our stops thus far. I of course hated that morning in Winters when Maander had problems. I think after Mendocino I have been disappointed in Fort Bragg and the weather just kinda took some of the wind out of my sails. Walking around a town that seems pretty normal getting beat by the blustery wind after just coming from a town that seems as if it was created by a great fiction author can do that to you.

I need more warmth and less moisture. Anna and I decided we won't be heading up the coast the whole way. Looks like it very well may snow in Crescent City around the time we will be there and there is no chance I want to deal with that. Instead, we will go to Eureka and take highway 299 to Weaverville and Redding. A guy at the church said that 299 really isn't that bad of a highway to use to get to I-5.

I am asking myself, "Can I really live this way for potentially a year?" So far it has been a big transition and I am hopeful for when we get to warmer climates. I really wish we were able to start this journey in the warm months. We will have to adapt. Don't get me wrong, I am not giving up yet or regretting this decision. I am merely questioning myself and trying to make sure I am making the best decisions possible.

....seriously sorry for how long this blog is :(...... :)