A Cabin in the Redwoods

 

When we spent the long Labor Day weekend in Gualala, we stayed in a lovely little cabin in the Redwoods along beautiful Highway 1, right across from the Pacific Ocean.

But before we got there, we met with our very good friends B and P at the Navarro Winery in Anderson Valley for our annual winetasting picnic. We started doing this last year and decided then to let it become a new tradition. B and P - a German-American couple - are very close friends of ours whom we met through our German Stammtisch group (curious what a Stammtisch is? Find out here). We spent four wonderful hours together in the beautiful vineyards of this winery off the beaten path that makes fantastic wine at an affordable price.

This one is for Nicole's Friday Face Off

After that the Geek and I were on our way to Gualala and our little cabin. It is a basic cabin, nothing fancy, and it's right at the Redwoods.

It has a decent sized room with a bathroom and a beautiful deck at the back. The skylight is right above the bed and I enjoyed looking up into the canopy of the trees. 

The room has a cozy little sitting nook where we had our breakfast and enjoyed a glass of wine in the evening while chatting, reading and knitting. The heater was very helpful in the chilly mornings and evenings.

The homemade breakfast was brought to our door every morning. It was delicious.

The Naked Ladies (Amaryllis belladonna, native to South Africa) were in full bloom and the deer weren't shy at all and seemed to hang out on the premises a lot. 

And finally, the view of the ocean. 

On the first morning we went to Gualala Point Regional Park. While Gualala is in Mendocino County, the regional park is still in Sonoma County and we could use our Regional Parks Pass here. The border between the two counties is in the middle of Gualala River which flows into the ocean at Gualala Point.

The first view of the ocean is from near the visitors center.

We decided to first go to the beach. Instead of walking down the paved path, we took the dirt trail through the "tunnels".

I was delighted about the Naked Ladies in the meadow, but not so much about the Pampas Grass (Cortaderia selloana). As the name says, Pampas Grass is native to southern South America and a highly invasive species at our coast. It looks beautiful, but it does a lot of harm to our native plants.

Someone had planted Nasturtium (Tropaeolum) on top of the cliffs and it was hanging down the cliff wall. Nasturtium is native to South and Central America, but as far as I know it is not invasive. It sure looked stunning in this location.

The beach is long and slightly curved with lots of driftwood and, of course, an abundance of gulls.

All this walking, taking photos and beachcombing (I took home some beautiful small driftwood for future art projects) makes hungry, so we decided to eat at our favorite seafood shack in town. Rockfish and chips on one day, a spicy tuna melt on the other. The three hispanic girls who work in this shack (and who might be the owners) are always very nice and pleasant, and their food is excellent. I'm really glad they made it through the pandemic. Other than many shacks I have seen in the States, they try to keep their single-use things at a minimum - the only plastic is the little container for the sauce and they use food grade paper to line the baskets. We have been going here for years and we have never been disappointed. Afterwards it was time for coffee at Trinks on the cliffs with a view of the ocean - Aztec Mocha for the Geek, a regular Mocha for me. Yummy.

My favorite part of Gualala Point, however, is not the beach, but the Bluff Trail. It offers endless views of the ocean along a narrow trail. We had expected foggy and cool days in Gualala as the weather so often is like that at our coast, but we had sunny weather throughout with temperatures in the 60s (a lovely relief to our much warmer inland temperatures). This made walking along the Bluff Trail even more enjoyable.

Of course I was delighted by all the plants we saw along the way as well as the often very gnarled trees. There are "tunnels" here as well - I actually call this trail the Hobbit Trail as I can picture it in Middle Earth.

Beautiful views everywhere...

And to my biggest delight we saw so many Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis)!

A little fun sidenote: A writing, office and art equipment company in Germany is called Pelikan. It was founded in Hannover in 1838. My first fountain pen I got (in first or second grade) was a Pelikan one and I had it for years. Today I'm writing with a Faber Castell fountain pen, but I still use the Pelikan ink cartridges (thanks, Amazon).

And finally a couple pictures at sunset, again at Gualala Point.

The 366 Project: August

 September already! Can you believe it?

This was August:

These were my thoughts that I wrote down on the last day of August: 

August was a month that flew by too quickly, again. The month brought fresh summer fruit and produce, tons of tomatoes and therefore time in the kitchen making tomato sauce in order to keep the ripe tomato flavor through the winter. It brought gatherings with good friends and fun game nights with my "old" students. Time at the ocean and in the redwoods. And time to read, garden and paint. It was a good month.

August ended on a very high note when the Geek and I spent a long weekend in Gualala (pronounced wa-LA-la) on the coast. We had booked the same cabin where we stayed back in 2019 - it had changed just a tiny bit since then. The furniture in the sitting area was re-arranged since they had added a microwave to each cabin - result of the pandemic, I assume. I did like the sitting nook even better this time.

We did a few outings - down to the beach at Gualala Point Regional Park...

... twice to the hidden Bowling Ball Beach...

... to the Point Arena Stornetta Public Lands...

... and to the Bluff Trail in Gualala Point Regional Park.

We enjoyed beautiful sunsets and evenings with a lot of atmosphere.

I will write more about this long weekend in future posts. For now I wish you a lovely first week of September.

Walking Among Old Oak Trees

 

Last week my friend Kris and I took a lovely walk in Crane Creek Regional Park which is one of my favorites. The reason I like it so much is that it has so many old native oak trees that give the park its special character. In the spring a grand show of native wildflowers downright explodes here, but due to my stupid knee and the surgery I wasn't able to see it this year. However, last year I did see the wildflowers and if you are curious about them, you can see them here. 

The first oak we saw was a dead oak.

Most dead trees are simply left in this park where they slowly decay and still give lots of shelter and food supply for the wildlife. I think this is one of the reasons I like this park so much, its very natural state.

Here's another decaying tree:

Isn't it gorgeous? Of course, poison oak is already growing up the trunk in the background.

Below you see two dead trunks in front of and next to oaks and other trees that are way more alive.

Getting closer and changing perspective, they looked a little different.

They actually remind me of a mating dance of (rattle)snakes, only a bit bigger and clumsier.

We were getting closer to the halfway point of our walk, a bench in the shade of this tree. From up here we had a splendid view over the oaks in the valley. While we were sitting there, we were able to observe many birds and feisty squirrels. Crane Creek is home to a good number of raptors; this time we saw and heard Red-tailed hawks as well as White-tailed kites.

The oak we were sitting under already showed some signs of autumn.

Other oaks seemed to have fallen only recently, lying on the ground with their foliage still full and green.

Others were just crooked - my kind of tree!

Do you see the Turkey vulture sitting on the dead tree (this was actually a song Kaefer learned during 6th grade science camp on the Marin Headlands). Just right before it had landed with wide open wings. Their wingspan is enormous, but I was too late with my camera, because...

... I was taking a picture of this. Crooked tree branches over our path. These are the things I love.

You can hardly see the face of the Turkey vulture, but I do need a face for Nicole's Friday Face Off. So I stayed closer to home and took a picture of soundly sleeping Kibeau on top of the leaves in my garden, just wanting to be near me. I love his sweet little face when he is so relaxed. My sweet grumpy old man.