FIRST DAY WALKS: California State Parks announces guided interpretive hikes at 4 state parks along the Mendocino Coast on January 1, 2012. These hikes are part of a nationwide effort of special hikes on New Years Day in state parks in all 50 states. This will promote state parks and participation in healthy activities. All of these hikes will take place on California’s North Coast in wintertime. Be prepared for cool temperatures.

WALK #1: Westport-Union Landing State Beach. Meet the docent at 1:00 p.m. at the park headquarters building at park main entrance, just west of Hwy 1. The park is located about 19 miles north of Fort Bragg, California on Hwy 1. This will be a 1 mile long moderate hike. This hike is suggested for children 8 years and older, and adults. Learn fun facts about the once bustling town of Westport from local resident Steve Brigham.

WALK #2: MacKerricher State Park. Meet the docent at 10:00 a.m. at the Laguna Point parking lot, from Mill Creek Road, three miles north of Fort Bragg, California, west of Hwy 1. This will be an easy three-quarter-mile walk along a boardwalk. This short walk will be filled with fun facts about MacKerricher State Park as you walk to an overlook above the ocean. Park Naturalist Teresa Hurray will lead this walk. The walk is suggested for children 12 years and older, and adults.

WALK #3: Russian Gulch State Park. Meet the docent in front of the recreation hall at the park at 12:00 noon. The park entrance road is located on the west side of Hwy 1, three miles north of Mendocino, California. This will be a moderate 5.5 mile out and back hike (2.75 miles each way) to the beautiful waterfall at Russian Gulch State Park. You will learn about the park’s natural history from Dave Jensen, renowned birder and naturalist. This hike is suggested for children 10 years and older, and adults. Bring water and snacks with you.

WALK #4: Mendocino Headlands State Park. Meet the docent at the Ford House Visitor Center at 1:00 p.m. The visitor center is at 725 E. Main St. in Mendocino, California. This will be a moderate 2 mile out and back hike (1 mile each way) to the bluffs overlooking the ocean. Park naturalist Fred Andrews will talk about the annual migration of gray whales between Alaska and Baja. Binoculars will be provided to look for gray whales swimming southward. This hike is suggested for children 10 years and older, and adults.

WHALE TALKS: California State Parks announces weekend whale talks at MacKerricher State Park! Talks will take place from January 7 through March 18, 2012. Knowledgeable docents will talk about the annual gray whale migration and about other marine mammals seen along the Mendocino coast. Programs are scheduled to begin every Saturday and Sunday at 11:00 a.m., from January 7, through March 18.

Talks will begin near the visitor center at the main entrance to MacKerricher State Park. Docents will provide binoculars and a spotting scope to help visitors study whales and other fascinating wildlife found near MacKerricher’s shores. After meeting at the MacKerricher visitor center, groups will then drive to Laguna Point, where you will walk out to look for whales. Programs are scheduled for 11:00 a.m. every Saturday and Sunday from January 7 through March 18, 2011

I just found another great breakfast place on the Mendocino Coast: the Rollerville Café at the Lighthouse Pointe Resort. Located at Highway 1 and Lighthouse Road in Point Arena, 35 miles south of Mendocino Village and 15 miles south of Highway 128, it is family run, offers great breakfasts for about $10, and is the perfect place to fuel up before strolling next door in the Stornetta Preserve or visiting the newly reopened Point Arena Lighthouse museum and gift shop. Rollerville, also known as Flumeville, was named for the way logs were rolled up the hill to waiting wagons in the late 1800’s, according to Alysia Calkins, who owns the café with her mother, Dorothy Barrett. She provided us a history book with photos along with our hash.

The day my wife, Gerry, and I visited, Alysia was waitressing and her brother, Sterling, was cooking. Sterling made the best fresh corned beef hash I have ever eaten. I’m not exaggerating. I’m not a food writer, so I won’t try to toss about a bunch of culinary jargon. I can only tell you it is spicy with a little bit of crispness and I loved it. In addition to food, Lighthouse Pointe resort offers cabins and parking for RV’s.

After breakfast, drive to Stornetta, walk toward the old coast guard houses ¾ miles distant and look back at the waterfall pouring into the ocean. Afterward, continue down Lighthouse Road to the Point Arena Lighthouse for a tour. The lighthouse tower has been reinforced and the fog signal building remodeled. The Fresnel lens is now in the museum.

This event is for the release of the Third Edition of Mendocino Outdoors, the best guidebook about the Mendocino Coast. The new edition is a huge improvement over the past editions in all ways: it’s been completely revised (rewritten, really), and expanded to cover the entire Mendocino Coast. The new edition also has a lot more photography in it, to show you why you might want to go see something. I also ended up revising all of the maps, in addition to new ones.

You can see more about the book, including sample pages, here on the site.

APRIL 16, 2008

18th Annual 4-Day California Mille 1000-Mile Back Roads Tour to the Mendocino Hotel

The California Mille (MILL-ay) salutes Italy’s famed Mille Miglia (thousand mile) race that ran from Brescia to Rome to Brescia from 1927-1957. Cars that could have qualified for the original event are eligible to apply for entry in the California Mille to Mendocino.

This year’s cars will include some l5 Jaguars, 11 Alfa Romeos, 9 Mercedes-Benz as well as such rarely seen and exotic makes as Talbot-Lago, Nash Healey, Allard, Aceca-Bristol, Hudson Hornet, Kurtis, Cisitalia, Cunningham, and Delahaye. Participants are expected from l5 U.S. states and six nations: Australia, Colombia, Switzerland, the U.K., Canada and the U.S. Three 2008 Mille entries completed last year’s Peking-to-Paris marathon.. The 1000-mile route will take the Mille west on California Street, into the Presidio, and across the Golden Gate Bridge, then northeast to the wine country. A number of the guests are staying at the historic Mendocino Hotel and Garden Suites and the Hill House Inn where special food and beverage offerings will be made available to the race participants as well as other guests, visitors and locals who wish to enjoy this spectacular car collection. On Day 3, the 180 Mille guests will assemble at the Mendocino Hotel for a gourmet dinner and then return to the San Francisco area.

The California Mille, a not-for-profit event presented by Amici americani della Mille Miglia, is one of series of motoring tours under the direction of Martin Swig. The Mille is sponsored by San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel, Blancpain Watches, the Lodi Wine Growers, British Motors Jaguar, KSFO 560 AM Radio, Symbolic Motor Car Company, the Nob Hill Gazette and UBS Switzerland.

There was certainly more water coming off the waterfall than in the summer, but the real story was the ocean. The waves were at times quite large — large enough for the spray to obscure the waterfall! Unlike the last time we went down there, it was a sunny day, and we could see the Point Arena Lighthouse in the distance to the north.

After we headed back to the Garcia River wetlands, we went off on a side road on the north side of the river — but just around the bend, it was marked as Private Property. A man came along in a pickup as we were starting to turn around, and we asked if we could go in and take some pictures of the swans. He said it wasn’t his land, so we couldn’t get out there. But he urged us to follow him, and he took off. A couple of miles up the highway, he turned off on a dirt road towards the ocean. In a short while, we were entering the Clover Dairy — not only the sole dairy in the county, it’s also the only organic dairy in the county. He told us to join him in his truck, and he took us out a short distance to where the swans were hanging out in the fields. He introduced himself as Walt Stornetta, the owner of the dairy. He has about 400 cows on 550 acres of land. Each cow produces on average 67 pounds of milk — about 8 gallons a day. I felt really lucky to run into him like we did, and that he was so generous with his time.

Gallery 1: favorite images from DFF

Gallery 2: flower pictures by DFF, mostly from Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens

Gallery 3: pictures of the Point Cabrillo Light Station and area by Bruce

Gallery 4: Goldeneye Fall Foliage by DFF

We hope you enjoy the pictures!

As you can see, the colors ranged from green to yellow to orange to deep red from one plant to the next, making for swaths of color below the hill. You can still find the occasional bunch of grapes that was missed in the picking. These were pinot noir grapes, and while the resulting pinot is excellent, they weren’t particularly tasty in the raw. I love the deep almost-indigo blue in contrast to the wild yellows and reds around the grapes.

The Goldeneye tasting room is a charming building nestled between several restored apple-drying sheds. They host group events on the patio outside, with its barbecue grill and Dutch oven and fabulous view. Out in the middle of the vineyard on a manicured path, they’ve placed a pavilion with picnic tables. What a spectacular place to enjoy a picnic or some cheese with a fine wine!

During pupping season, the males hang out elsewhere in the area. Last Sunday, we drove north along the coast north of MacKerricher and Ten Mile Beach. We stopped at the vista point at mile marker 74.09 on Highway One. This is a lovely spot with some wetlands areas on the headlands, leading down to the ocean. We saw a number of harbor seals down on the rocks, and we’re guessing they were males.

This was also the driving trip where I discovered that Peet, my 9-month-old puppy, gets car sick. After he threw up twice in 25 miles, we headed back home — where Peet moped around the rest of the day. Gonna have to toughen that puppy up!