Saturday, September 4 - The next 3 nights we had reservations at Lassen Volcanic National Park, but these reservations were cancelled due to fire. Of course this was Labor Day weekend, so it was going to be hard to find reservations somewhere else at such late notice. We had heard on our Coachmen Nova Facebook Group page that the town of Mendocino was allowing camping overnight on the streets, as a way to get people to come and spend money there. We weren't sure if it was true, but decided to head that way. But first we were going to meander to get there. We did a few last hikes in Redwood National Park, before heading south.
An hour down the road we found Patrick Point State Park, that we decided to explore for the afternoon. There was a rim trail, with lots of overlooks, and multiple rocks to climb to the top of. We walked all afternoon, and found a picnic area to make dinner at, before heading off down the road to Bear River Casino, for a free overnight in their parking lot.
Sunday, September 5 - We left for Mendocino early in the morning, and as we were driving down 101, we saw a sign for Avenue of the Giants. This is the original Route 101, and runs through Humboldt State Park. It's 32 miles long and goes through some of the oldest groves of Redwoods. We found a nice pamphlet, that told us things to look for on the drive, and we stopped for a few hikes. At the Information Center, the ranger showed us the 3 types of Redwoods, which they have growing in front of the building. One is the Coast Redwood, that we have seen A LOT of. These are the tallest known trees, and can grow up to 350 ft, They were also growing a Sequoia, which grows in the Sierra Nevada. They are the most massive of all trees and can grow to be 250 ft and up to 3000 years old. The last one was a Redwood that is found in China, called the Dawn Redwood. The Dawn Redwood, doesn't grow to be tall like the other two and each year the leaves fall off.
We got to Mendocino after a long drive over the mountains with more windy roads. The town of Mendocini is a quaint little town, which we enjoyed walking around. There are lots of Art Shops and Main St looks out onto a beautiful cliff overlooking the ocean. We walked all along the cliff, and made a quick trip up the street to Fort Bragg, to see the Glass Beach. In the early 1900s the town had used the beach as a dump and all the glass dumped there was turned into seaglass.
