Day 27: Glass Beach and Mendocino - July 11

After our campground breakfast of oatmeal and cheese and crackers (and a delicious cinnamon roll from the Frendale Pie Company) in a mist (not quite a drizzle, but not really dry) we broke down the camp and got back in the car.  Just down the road on the Avenue of the Giants, we stopped in Founder’s Grove, home to some of the tallest trees in the world.We forgot to pick up the self-guided trail guide at the beginning of the hike so we just kind of guessed at what the numbered signs along the way might be indicating….until we got to number 10 or 11 and I couldn’t stand not knowing any longer.  So I jogged back to the beginning to get the guide, though it turns out there were only 12 signposts...In the meantime, we had noticed that the trail floor was covered with large swatches of clover.  We got so preoccupied with finding a four-leaf clover (still need to find something lucky for our scavenger hunt) that we spent more time looking down at the ground than we did looking up at the giant trees. When we finally got the information guide, we learned that we were searching through sorrel, a tasty wild edible that looks a lot like clover, but isn’t – and probably doesn’t even mutate to a four-leaf variety, and even if it did, is not a good-luck charm. We did get to see the Dyerville Giant, thought to be the tallest tree in the park before its fall in 1991, and its massive root system.

We continued down the Avenue of the Giants and drove through the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree.  It was damaged by fire which burned out the entire center of the tree so it was hollow all the way up.  Because Redwoods get their water from the outer rings rather than their centers, the tree is still alive. 

We continued on the old 101, hopped on the new 101, and connected to the 1 to get back over to the coast.  We lunched in Fort Bragg at a very strange Wizard-of-Oz-themed restaurant called Egghead’s Restaurant (food delicious, theme odd).  We drove down to the water to visit Glass Beach.  The sand is made up almost entirely of sea glass!  I’d heard about it and knew what I’d be walking into but it is still surprising to be walking on that much glass.  I thought it was super cool until Rachel explained to me that we were essentially on the city dump; there were three water dump sites near Fort Bragg, and this one was until 1967.  The sea glass is still a cool remnant.

From there Julia drove the seven miles to our stop for the night in Mendocino.  We were staying at the Hill House Inn because it was on a Groupon Getaway when I was planning my trip and because it was used as the Cabot Cove Inn in Murder She Wrote!  9 episodes were actually filmed in Mendocino and the rest used exterior shots from around town.  The last time we were in Mendocino was in 2004 for Juliana Van Cleve’s wedding (Julia flower girl and the first wearing of Rachel’s fancy jacket) and the Hill House is where she had her rehearsal dinner.  As is usually the case when we check in to a hotel in that 4 pm time frame, we got a little lazy in the room before we could motivate ourselves to get back out.  We did walk down into town around 5:30 pm and as luck has gone on this trip, we ended up in Mendocino on the one Saturday night when the city does not shut down at 5.  It was opening night of the Mendocino Music Festival so not only were all the shops open until 8 pm, they all had little things to nibble on as you walked through (which was good because the girls were low energy at that point) and many had musicians playing in them.  We poked around art galleries and bookstores before heading to the recommended Frankie’s Pizza and Ice Cream (thanks Juliana!).  After dinner, we took a beautiful long walk through the Mendocino Headlands State Park as the sun was starting to set.  It was simply gorgeous. 

We got back to our hotel and headed to the lobby.  We ran into a nice couple from LA on their way up to Seattle along the coast.  They are huge Galaxy fans and were watching a game on their ipod so we chatted with them a while.  He let us know that season 1, episode 4 of Murder She Wrote significantly features the Hill House Inn so after playing some cards we headed back to our room to watch that on Netflix.  Unfortunately the WiFi in the rooms wasn’t working so we’ll have to save that for another day.