Long and winding road

Yesterday morning after having breakfast with Daniel, Shannon and Maleia, we drove the 200 miles to Fort Bragg, CA to see Jonathan. The first 75 miles in the city and up Highway 101 are fine if traffic isn't too bad. Once you get to Highway 128, the road is one hairpin, switchback turn after another. Some of it runs along the ocean so the turns make their way up the side of the cliffs and, amazingly, guard rails are few and far between. Another section of the road took us through Anderson Valley with grapevines and wineries on both sides of the road, while another section found us driving through an eleven-mile redwood tunnel--although the sun was shining during part of the drive, very little of it reached through the dense forest. Each section is treacherous, but beautiful.

Jon told us not to arrive until 4:30, so we stopped, just short of Fort Bragg, in Mendocino and ate a a late lunch at the Mendocino Cafe. This quaint coastal town is full of eclectic shops and galleries. We visited the Highlight Gallery which features fine woodworking projects from College of the Redwood graduates. We drove into the school parking lot right at 4:30--didn't want to be late as we hadn't seen Jon since early August. Hugs all around made this mom and dad really happy. I've attached a couple of pictures--Jon's workbench and the workshop. It was nice to meet some of the 22 other students and see their projects. Unfortunately for us, Jon's table is still in pieces so he can put the finish on it. Later this week he will be assembling it so we will just have to wait for pictures.

We walked along the coastline at Fort Bragg and hiked down to Glass Beach. Back in the 50's the spot was where people in the town dumped their trash, which, of course, included lot's of glass. The practice was stopped in the mid-60's. Decades later everything but the glass is gone. Years of pounding wave action have deposited tons of polished glass onto the beach. For the most part what you see is millions of pieces of glass sparkling in the sun--well, there wasn't much sun on Saturday, but it was still amazing. I've attached a close-up of some of the glass pieces.

Sunday morning we had breakfast at Cafe 1 (named for it's location on California Highway 1.) In California sometimes you get organic food whether you want it or not! We tried really hard to find a place to watch the Chief's game on Sunday afternoon, but didn't succeed. I think it was a blessing in disguise since the game would have driven Stephen and Jon crazy.

The best pizza in town finally opened at 4:00 p.m., and we were there shortly after. We ordered a pepperoni, as usual, but decided on their speciality 4 Seasons pizza for the other one. It was 1/4 tomato, 1/4 cheese, 1/4 ham and 1/4 mushroom--really tasty and was a great way to end our day with Jon. All that was left for the day was the almost 4-hour drive back to Palo Alto. The drive which is long and hard during the day was worse at night--bright lights on, car coming, bright lights off, 15-mph turn, switchback, cliff on right, repeat for 2 1/2 hours!

We were very, very happy to see the San Francisco traffic and be back on an interstate highway! Across the Oakland Bay Bridge ($5 please) and then 30 minutes later--home to Palo Alto.