MacKerricher State Park

A drive further up California Highway 1 brought us to MacKerricher State Park.  This is another coastal park and is located just a few miles north of Fort Bragg.  The drive between Salt Point and here was gorgeous, but all the driving we have done on the 1 has been super curvy with lots of steep grades.  Jeff has done fine driving it, but it has certainly been a challenge, and we aren’t sure we would recommend it to others towing trailers.  We certainly wouldn’t recommend it for any rigs larger than ours.  We know lots of people do it, but there are some areas that are super tight, and the other traffic on the road isn’t always the most courteous or patient.

Our stay at MacKerricher has been a quiet one.  Tuesday night we went over to the beach to watch the sunset and were rewarded with more harbor seals lounging on the rocks.  There is always some kind of marine life to watch on the California coast.  We have seen sea otters, elephant seals, harbor seals, crabs, anemones, urchins, many kinds of birds, etc.  There is always something interesting to see!  We are a little disappointed that whales aren’t among the list of animals we have seen, but maybe in Alaska!

We spent a good portion of the day Wednesday at Glass Beach.  Sadly, this is a beach that was used as the town dump until the 1950s. They have since tried to clean it up some, but there is still a fair bit of metal and glass located along the shores.  The surf has broken down the glass into pebble sized, rounded pieces that are really quite beautiful.  Apparently, there used to be much more of it, but people have carried it off over the years to keep for themselves.  In most areas of the beach, you really have to look to find it now, but we found one particular area that required some scrambling to get to, where there was way more.  In this area, most of what we were walking on was glass, and it made the coolest tinkling sound when the waves came in and out and moved it all around.  Despite the fun we had exploring here, we have mixed emotions about this place.  The glass is very beautiful and definitely not something you will see in other places, but at the end of the day, it is still trash.  This beach should not be full of rusting metal and glass pebbles. 

Here is evidence that California – even northern California – does have sloped sandy beaches. It isn’t all rugged rocks. The sand is very different than the sand on the east coast, though. It doesn’t pack down where it is wet. It is still quite squishy and not easy to walk on.

And there is always something to work on, something needing maintenance, something that needs attention. This time it was the auxiliary fan that pulls heat away from our refrigerator compressor. It has been acting flaky, so Jeff took it apart and gave it a good cleaning. We will see if that fixes it.

From here we continue our journey north.  We hope to see at least a little of the Redwoods before heading into Oregon.  Check back in a few days to see where we end up!

Until next time!