thick fog
the waves dissolve
into distant roar
After leaving mom's house in Lake Tahoe we made our way through northeastern California. (The part about moving our stuff into storage in Weaverville's 100 degree weather is only worth mentioning briefly here, it wasn't really a pretty scene - we both felt muddled and dizzy from the intense heat!) So we dropped off the uhaul - goodbye crane! - and continued westward. We had 10 days before moving into Michele and Tim's cabin and decided to get to know the place a bit by camping in as many beautiful spots we could find.
Down Highway 101, we cut further west through Ferndale, a small Victorian dairy farming town, and took a quick left onto the tiny winding road that led to the northern-most point of what is called the Lost Coast. It's scantly populated with vast rugged ranch land (probably rugged cows as well.) Initially we were shrouded in fog and but quickly the clouds lifted, and soon we were able to see the ocean.
the Mattole sliding in next to the ocean...
The Mattole river slowly seeps through the sand, gently sifting into the Pacific and causing the beach to slough and erode in really beautiful patterns.
...soLo making tracks around a slip
diving board
We hiked a couple of miles down the beach from our campsite on the beginning of the 25 mile trail that heads south all the way to Shelter Cove in Mendocino county. It's so steep that the road builders decided to avoid it when they built
Hwy 1. Oh, and did I mention earthquakes? We were camped on the Mendocino Triple Junction, where three fault lines meet!
Josh came across seals and sea lions lined up neatly along the beach, warming themselves in the sun (I wish I had remembered the camera.) And then we reached the Punta Gorda lighthouse.
There's the lighthouse on the right side of the picture...
This is an old picture - those houses aren't there anymore. The story is that when the Bureau of Land Management took over this area, they burned the houses down in the 1950's to keep the hippies from living there.
This place and the houses that used to surround it was built from materials that were ferried up the ocean and brought ashore by cables through the waves. Big waves!
Being on the Lost Coast was an amazing reintroduction to the Pacific Ocean - so wild and vast - truly awesome.
next installment: the rivers
Have enjoyed catching up on your blog posts, Malia and Josh. The Lost Coast is on the bucket list. You capture it, and some of N. Cali in a wonderful way. Your artful style of sharing is a good antidote--a prescription almost-- to today's data-crazed drinking with a fire-hose style of reading on the internet. Dja know that I proposed to Thalia down at Shelter Cove?
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