THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Shelter Cove California

Copyright 2013, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

May 17, 2013.  After a delightful, and interesting ride from Benbow to Shelter Cove we were ready for lunch.  We had a picnic lunch with us, and we headed down to King Range National Conservation Area Mal Coombs Park.  It has picnic tables, a landing strip nearby, campground nearby, ocean nearby and the Cape Mendocina Lighthouse, as well as a few other surprises.

Here is that campground as we drove into the park area, lots of tents and small campers, remember Shelter Cove Road??  Smaller is better, in this case, in my opinion.

Like I said, there is a landing strip nearby, and me and planes, well, I heard this one and turned to snap off a photo.  My kinda plane.  If you look closely, you can see campers parked way back there - - -

ZOOM, thanks to Sony Too, and some serious cropping with the digital editing software, shows that some smaller motorhomes and trailers do manage to traverse Shelter Cove Road. There were only a few 5th wheels in the campground, one of them was about 10 foot shorter than our Tana.  10 foot makes a lot of difference towing roads like Shelter Cove.

There are several memorials in the park:

In Memory of Our Shipmates and Friends.  

On July 12, 1994, Coast Guard Helicopter 6541 Responded To a Mayday From a Sailing Vessel in Distress South of Shelter Cove CA.  While Searching For The Vessel in Heavy Fog, The Helicopter Crashed Into The Cliff 1/4 Mile North by North East of This Location in Position 40-01.5 North, 124-03.8 West.  All Hands Perished in The Crash.

Crew of Coast Guard Helicopter 6541

Lt. Laurence Williams, Pilot

Lt. Mark Koteek, Co-Pilot

ASMCS Peter Leeman, Rescue Swimmer

AM1 Michael Gill, Flight Mechanic.

Mario Machi

1914   1998

A Founder of Shelter Cove With Brothers Tony and 

Babe Machi

A Ready Smile, A Friendly wave, A Faraway Look Waiting for "His" Fishermen to Return.

We're Thankful We've Known This Gentle Man - -

A HERO IN WAR

Survivor of the Bataan Death March and Over Three Years of Brutal Captivity in World War II

Bronze Star -  Service to Others -

A HERO IN PEACE

Courageous Ocean Rescues - Respected Teacher, Author, Historian.

The Spirit of Shelter Cove. 

A lovely stature of Mario.  (Photo less than lovely. SIGH The bright sun fooled Sony Too and me.  Ooops.)

Here is the Cape Mendocina Lighthouse, I found two rather nice web pages that talk about the lighthouse, the first (link broken as of October 2018), here, is the basics, but, very well done.  The second page, here, is very detailed and is fascinating reading!  Don't forget to click!  

After lunch, we drove around town, discovering this beaut of a home, with a killer view of the water.

Man stopped so I could take some additional photos, when I spied:

More Sony Too zoom, did not see the inhabitants,  those are some fancy residences, eh?  If you know what resides here, let me know.

Must have at least one charming old boat in the yard.

It was rather calm on the sea:

Oh, my, what does Sony Too zoom?   Yes, sea lions.

More of our visit to Shelter Cove to come.  Come on back now - - 

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THE Trip, THE Encore' :: The Drive to Shelter Cove California

Copyright 2013, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

May 17, 2013, Man and I set off for a day trip/drive to Shelter Cove California.  The ride from Benbow is 54 miles one way.  The road climbs to about 2100 feet before we drop down to Shelter Cove which sits pretty much at sea level.  The road also is quite curvy. 

There are at least two single lane areas along the road.

A bit narrow:

Waiting for Jolly, thank you sir.

A number of these hair pin turns, go slow for sure.  But, what caught my attention are those tread marks.  Really??  Someone is out here doing burns??

Another example, a full 360 burned in.  The word, "idiots", keeps running through my head.  

Our first glance of the Pacific from Shelter Cove road. 

This is a book we relied on quite a bit for our travel time in the west, it lists roads that may have issues for big rigs such as Tana.  They list size of rigs that should not drive these routes.  They describe the route.

And, this is what we saw coming out of Shelter Cover, this Montana is at least as large as Tana.  Remember that hairpin turn??  That is just one of many issues he will be dealing with.  There were also a few inside blind curves with solid walls of rock and pine trees.  We had to pull over close to the left edge of our lane, almost into the oncoming traffic lane just to get Jolly around, this guy had to be running in the oncoming traffic lane, otherwise we don't believe he could make those sharp corners with out scraping the side of that rig.  Re-read the warnings from our book, "we would suggest you scout this road in a small vehicle".  We did not see this guy at the bottom of a ravine or anything when we drove out, so we are guessing he made it just fine.  Gotta say, his wife must be made of nerves of steel.  WOW!  We have had friends tell us they drove this with their rigs, no thanks.  Again, WOW!

We have arrived, time for a picnic lunch and exploring Shelter Cove.

Oh, those little boats out there in the water, those are kayaks.  Shelter Cove was another interesting and fascinating area long the California coast.  I took over 325 photos this day, so, I have a few pretties to share with you.




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Time Out For a Personal Update

Copyright 2013, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Friends and family over at Facebook already know this, but, some of Reflection's readers are not Facebook friends, so I share with you - -

Man had a melanoma in 2009.  He recently went in for a cancer check up and a basal cell cancer was found on his back.  It has been removed.  But, I noticed a "pimple" looking thing on his chest and we had the doctor look at it.  Yep, another melanoma.  The doctor missed it in his exam, as I found it the very next day.  Ya, that miss by the professional did not thrill us.

Surgery to remove the growth is scheduled for early next week, with a 2 week, no activity healing time frame.  We don't know if he will need a second surgery.  He did the first go around with this buggar, melanoma.

So, we are grounded for a bit.  Tana has been winterized.  We have been working on getting issues in order for departure, the van is parked in the pole barn, dog food and meds have been procured, for example.  If we are cleared for travel, those things will be done, that is a good thing.

I hope to spend this extra time blogging and cleaning the office(s).  That said, much energy has been spent these last couple of months on endless loop medical messes and frustration is running a bit deep around here.  SIGH.

So, onward we go.  Life is a roller coaster, I hope we are nearing the bottom of this run.




Melanoma, learn about it, you can save your own life!  CLICK here!

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"Halloween"

Copyright 2013, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

This blog post  is part of my participation in a weekly writing meme called, "The Book of Me, Written By You"  You too can be part of this experiment/experience, there is information at this Facebook page.

I may or may not publicly share what I write each week. This week I share.

(You may note that I have skipped several weeks of the meme, I will catch up with those in the future, but, this weeks challenge is time sensitive, so, here we go.)

This week’s (Week 9) prompt is Halloween

Have you ever participated in a Halloween event?
When was it?
Where was it?
What did you dress as?
Trick or treat?

Oh, do we participate in Halloween??  Oh, yes, we do.  Every year as far back as I can remember Halloween, we participated.

Must say, tho, I don't remember this, the earliest photo in my possession, of me in a costume, along with my brother.  This was in the early 1950's.  Two clowns.  Most likely the costumes were sewn by our mother.

This photo was in the late 1950's, my mother's Metropolitan behind us.  Brother was a witch, with broom and all.  I believe I was a gypsy?  These were the days of the paper masks, with the elastic stretchy band to hold them on.  They covered your eyes and nose, and I remember they were not always easy to breath through.

I remember going trick or treating with large bags, ok, pillow cases.  We lived in a rural area, we had to run, hard and fast, in order to cover the territory and come home with lots of carbs, err, candy.  This was in the day of the huge candy bars.  We always knew which houses gave away the "good" stuff, and we did tend to go to those first.

(Yea, I research stuff when I write posts, go ahead, click. How large were candy bars in the 1950?  Be sure to look at the images too!)

Then, came high school and college and marriage and babies and Man's service to our country.  We ended up in Morocco for 16 months.  And, for some reason, we decided to throw a Halloween party.  I was Dorothy.  (Oh to be that tiny again, sigh!)

And, Man was my Lion. (Another couple, good friends of ours came as the Tin Man and the Scarecrow.)

That was some party, let me tell you.

When we returned stateside, we had another baby.   There were many costumes over the years, most gathered from whatever we could around the house.  There was the year that the eldest son wore a wig, ya, one I had that was really horrible, but, he made kinda a pretty little girl (but do NOT tell him I said that!  LOL)

We had pumpkins to decorate each year.  Seems I have not scanned many of those photos.  I really must see if I can find the photo from the first year we painted pumpkins instead of carving them.  That year we each had a pumpkin, even Man.  I remember hats and other additions to the painted faces.  They were so much fun!  Painting pumpkins became a favorite way to decorate, no digging out pumpkin guts and seeds, they lasted for 6 weeks if painted correctly and the different shapes gave over to some great creative faces.  Burt and Ernie of the Muppets became favorites of mine, they were small and so distinctive, and the younger kids love them.

Some years I would still dress up, as here in 1981, the Djellaba was purchased in Morocco.  Children seemed to be rather fascinated by it, as costumes go.

When the grandtwins came along we started trick or treating again.  It became a yearly tradition, grandparents, sometimes two sets of grandparents, parents, the twins, the uncles and a long list of other relatives and friends.  The young parents seem to love dressing up too.  They are very creative with their costumes and makeup, face painting is very popular.  We have lots of fun photos.

And, yes, I have even dressed my pets.  SIGH.  Here are on the left, Abby, and on the right, Tilly.  They were clowns too, little hats with pompoms and leis.  They did not like the hats.

Happy Halloween!  May your costumes be varied, interesting and remembered.

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THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Richardson Grove State Park, Garberville, California

Copyright 2013, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

May 16, 2013.  After doing some touristy stuff, we stopped back at Richardson Grove State Park.

101 along this stretch would become very narrow at points.  It is rather difficult to trim the redwoods.  See the link below to Wikipedia article, which just so happens to discuss this narrow road situation.

At the park, we drove around.  It became evident very quickly that this particular park was no place for Tana, we could barely get Jolly around in the campground.  This is one of the campsites, it was another few feet long, Jolly may have fit on the site, there was no way Tana was going to.

Next we drove over by the Eel River, the road in and out was just as narrow.  Looks more like a hiking trail.

Looking up and up and up - -  you cannot see the ground and the tops of the trees at the same time.

Richardson Grove State Park, per Wikipedia, contains "approximately 2,000 acres, straddles US 101, causing the narrowest point of its entire distance. Said to have the 9th largest tree of all remaining Coast Redwoods."  The article discusses the pro and con arguments over widening 101 through the park.

Coming up, Shelter Cove and part of the Avenue of the Giant Redwoods.  One long day trip, over 330 photos taken.




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THE Trip, THE Encore' :: The Grandfather Tree, And, You Can Do THAT With A Redwood?

Copyright 2013, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

May 16, 2013, We will spend a few hours driving around, made a quick visit to Richardson Grave State Park (photos to come) and stopped at some of the tourists traps, err, businesses along 101.  Sometimes ya just gotta stop at those places and enjoy the creativity and some ice cream or a cup of coffee, and smile - -

This is the Grandfather Tree, this photo taken with the panoramic setting with Sony Too, turned sideways, a challenge to say the least, fun, but a challenge!  Man is down there, little tiny Man!  SNICKER!  The Grandfather Tree is 245 feet tall, the tree trunks are 55 feet in circumference.  Yep, that ole Grandfather, he's a biggie!

See, he really is there, over there on the right, with his back to the camera, seems he has a habit of that back to the camera thing.

Lots of carvings to enjoy and photograph:

Taking a seat, err, rest, Man and Captain Hook.

I think this carving was supposed to be true to size?  GULP!  Grizzly Bear.

And, YES, we are in the southern reaches of Big Foot Country, see, here he is!  You know there just HAD to be a carving of Big Foot!

The Redwoods are astonishing.  I'll share more, soon - -



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