Christmas on the Northern CA Coast

December 31, 2024

This year I didn’t want to make any plans for joining what family I have left (transplants from CA to MN), and decided to spend Christmas Day alone. Not that I consider myself to be a hermit, but I suppose an odd thing about me is that I feel as comfortable in solitude as with others. Nothing against humanity, but I can go either way.

Besides, I already have enough “stuff.” In fact, I think I have too much stuff. There is something to be said for a simple existence. The “stuff” can end up owning you.

Anyway, the thought popped into my head of driving up to the North Coast and staying at my usual haunt at Ft Bragg, The Beachcomber.

During COVID when I was starting to go stir crazy, I once stayed there and brought plenty of Staufers in an ice chest for meals. The rooms are almost a step to the beach and the sound of the waves is relaxing. Ft Bragg is an old lumber town and if you are there during spring or summer a ride on the old Skunk Railroad is a must-do. Over a couple of hours, it takes you up into the forests of the Coast Range to the town of Willits. I think it is the old line that took the lumber to Ft Bragg.

Fr Bragg is about 13 miles from the more famous Mendocino and the personalities of the towns couldn’t be more different. Both, I believe, had their origins in the lumber trade but Mendocino is now an “artist colony” and Ft Bragg, much bigger, has a lot more industry, including fishing. But Mendocino is more photogenic.

I would have to say that Mendocino is even a bit “snooty”. Never will forget the sign on a restaurant window there proclaiming that “If you support Trump please don’t come in here”. Which perplexed me because when I was in business, I never asked my clients about politics. They could be Marxists for all I cared as long as we had a business relationship and they paid their bills. Why alienate a large percentage of your potential customer base over hatred of a particular candidate? Johnny Carson had the right idea.

But!

Mendocino has always been a photographer’s paradise.

For those of you who remember the CBS hit show of the 80s, Murder She Wrote, did you know that “Cabot Cove, Maine” was really Mendocino? The production crew always stayed at the Hill House and if you stroll through the few streets of Mendocino, you can see Jessica’s “house”. And while walking through Mendocino, the most spectacular vista is at the Mendocino Headlands.

Anyway, for my quick and impromptu trip there for the 24th and 25^th, the thought came to me (much of my life’s guidance it seems is “thoughts popping into my head”), “why not stay at the Little River Inn”, where my parents used to go for many years? It is about 2-3 miles south of Mendocino.

California’s Hwy 1 is probably the most famous of highways in the state. It runs from near Dana Point, CA to Mendocino County for 656 miles, and the road’s personality can vary dramatically. I used to think it was the most scenic road in the world, but several trips around the country would still put it in the top 10 in my book. Certainly the Beartooth Highway, which starts in Red Lodge, MT and takes you to the northern entrance to Yellowstone, is up there. It’s about 60-70 miles and in a short distance with more switchbacks than you can count, takes you up 1000s of feet above the treeline.

I could name others.

To Angelenos, it is known as simply the “PCH” – the Pacific Coast Highway, and particularly in Santa Monica it is a large wide boulevard. Many famous movie scenes have been filmed here.

It links the beach towns of Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Malibu among others. As an aside, I remember on a sales trip in the late 70s driving on the PCH in Hermosa Beach and seeing a small Porsche dealership with a very famous name. Naturally I had to get out and investigate. Vasek Polak was a famous Porsche dealer in the 60s and 70s and  a well-known privateer with his own race teams. I walked into the showroom and though a little door in the back revealed a warehouse full of the most amazing collection of Porsches I’d seen. From 356s to 917s. He started one of the first – if not these first, Porsche dealerships on the west coast. It was said that in the early days of Porsche, the So Cal market kept the company alive.

Anyway 40 years later I still remember that walk through that portal.

As you go north, even the nature of the beaches change. From the stereotypical sandy So Cal Beaches up to very rocky beaches starting around Big Sur. Further north from Los Angeles, if you stop at San Simeon (where a visit to “Hearst Castle” is almost mandatory, stop at the beach where Elephant Seals in the last few decades began to call home. The males can reach up to 4,000 lbs.

I would call the north coast anything from Bodega Bay (about 70 miles north of San Francisco) – up.

And a note about going to the North Coast:

Bring a book. A lot of times it is foggy and windy.

If you golf, bring clubs (if staying at the Sea Ranch or Little River Inn) There isn’t a whole lot to do up there but sightsee, eat, play golf or read.

And!

Call CalTrans to see if any of Hwy 1 in your travel area is closed.

I’m serious.

My neighbors just bought a new RV and wanted to go last weekend to Big Sur (just below Carmel/Monterey). They found out that a section of Hwy 1 was closed and had to drive 70 miles South to San Simeon (home of Hearst Castle), and then back up 1. The section between San Simeon and Big Sur – just south of Carmel and Monterey – has no roads meeting the highway. You would have to turn around on 1.

Particularity in the winter there can be landslides (that section between San Simeon and Big Sur the most scenic in my opinion, had a land slide where the entire section of the road washed down the cliff into the sea 100s of feet below). And you may have to drive 50 miles to see a road taking you east.

I know there is WAZE now but I have always called CalTrans at 800-427-ROAD.

My friend Erhardt, how has gone up to Gualala for years, told me that he got into the habit of carrying a chainsaw for fallen trees.

Anyway back to my trip.

On my appointed day of departure, Christmas Eve, I started to get a sore throat, but I had already paid for the room and would have lost at least one night with the late notice.

So up I went. It you think that was as dumb idea I might not disagree with you. (the worst of it came when I returned and as I am typing now  still not over the effects).

There’s 3 ways to get there – you can catch CA-1 right near the Golden Gate and work your way up, take I-80 then CA-37 to Petaluma and work your way up 1 (shorter distance), or go all the way up I-5 and head west on CA-20 past Clear Lake (where we have our own towns of Lucerne and Nice!) all the way to Ft Bragg.

This is the route I chose and let me tell you, with the pounding rain, going over the coast range at night with the tree foliage covering what sky there was I felt like Hansel and Gretel going through the dark forest. The 30-year-old halogen lights were almost useless.

Anyway, Christmas Day I thought I would do a bit of exploring and took my old trusty Nikon F3 and some B & W film.

The old railroad trestle (now a walkway) at Ft Bragg would have made a good B & W shot. To get there I had to cross a small clearwater stream going to the ocean. I carefully tread across the wet plank and promptly fall on my ass my backside sitting in the sand soaked. And of course, have to throw out my back just a bit (really just pulled a muscle). Even I saw some comedy value in this – had someone videoed that it could have been one of those senseless reels on Facebook getting 70,000 laughs.

I did have to laugh at the absurdity of the situation with my sandy and wet backside and hobbled back to the car.

I told the people at the Little River Inn that I was doing my Walter Brennan imitation. Nobody knew who I was referring to – but Brennan from his 40s always played old men (and generally hobbled like them).
This getting older…..(sigh).   Look him up on YouTube in The Real McCoys.

Which reminds me. On previous trip where I stopped at Big Sur for lunch, I remarked to the young server that Kim Novak used to live here.

Kim who?

Anyway from that time on other than a nice dinner I chose the reading option on the bed.

Getting back I decided to take a risk (sans chainsaw) and other than 3 sections with only 1 lane, went back uneventfully.

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My original post is at The Lexicans; I added and changed a bit for this version.