Our drive from Novato to Mendocino took a little over 3 hours along twisty mountain roads. Julia ended up a little carsick but thankfully that was towards the very end of the journey and was forgotten as soon as we pulled into our hotel.
The hotel itself was like a little slice of paradise on the Pacific Coast. It was nestled among gorgeous gardens overflowing with spring flowers and had the most comfortable sheets I have ever slept in and a beautiful indoor salt water pool. And they left delicious, vegan, chocolate chip cookies in our room each day! It was also only 2 minutes from the seaside town of Mendocino and a short 15 minute drive to Fort Bragg, home of Glass Beach.
It was close to dinner time when we arrived so we headed to a local pizza place for dinner and then back to the hotel for a quick swim before bed.
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| relaxing on the deck |
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| view from the deck |
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| ready for a swim |
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| Julia's heaven |
Then the day Julia had been waiting for finally arrived! First item of business on Saturday morning was to find Glass Beach! And we did, though not quite as easily as we had planned. When we arrived we tried following a couple of different paths to different areas of the beach but none were quite what we expected. There were people down below the cliffs, quite a few abalone fishermen and some folks beachcombing but we couldn't figure out how they got there. Until we watched for awhile and we realized that we had to ignore the tall fence standing between us and the cliffs and brave the climb. It turns out that the staircase that led visitors down to the main portion of the beach was destroyed during heavy rains a couple of months ago. So the only way to access the portion of Glass Beach that is truly covered in glass was a trip down the cliffs. It wasn't too bad and once we reached the bottom we were so glad that we had done it! We were ankle deep in sea glass.
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| glass beach |
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| beachcombing |
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| She made it!! |
Julia declared that it exceeded her expectations! And we were all a little stunned by it actually. We spent quite a while searching the beach and finding unusual pieces. The next day we returned and even saw a few seals frolicking in the cove.
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| just a little excited! |
From Glass Beach we headed back to the hotel for breakfast (also vegan and I was the only one in the family who enjoyed it - oh well) and then to Mendocino for some browsing and a picnic lunch.
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| not a bad view! |
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| the cherry chomper |
After fortifying ourselves we made our way to Russian Gulch State Park to hike through another redwood forest to a waterfall.
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| we loved these redwoods growing out the stumps of the previous tree |
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| our destination! |
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| 3 miles down, 3 miles to go! |
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| his Pikachu hat turned pouch held Benjamin treats (aka gummy bears) to keep the motivation up |
We survived the hike! It ended up being a bit more strenuous than we expected and we were all ready for a dip in the pool when we returned.
The next day was Mother's day and we enjoyed breakfast at a local Wizard of Oz themed diner before heading back to Glass Beach for a last look, taking a final swim, and then heading back through the mountains to the city and our flight home the next day. We were all a little sad for the vacation to be over. Julia especially did not want to return home and declared that she is going to live in the city of San Francisco later in life!
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