We went down to the Pygmy Forest today. It's on the south side of Mendocino by a couple of miles. It's part of Van Damm Park, but not that you would know it. You don't go into the park to get to the parking lot for the forest. You go down to Little Rivers, the next town, and we are talking a minor bump on the road. Then you look for the airport road and follow that up the hill. In a couple of miles you'll see the first sign for the Pygmy forest. Once you get there it's quite interesting. It is an area that used to be sea floor. Over the last million years an area has risen and the seas subsided to create a small plateau. This plateau receives very little run off from the hills around it. The soils have been leached due to a million years of rain and the lack of run off. The soil is very acidic, and the ground is quite hard and contains little oxygen. Anything that grows there will be stunted for those reasons.
The park has a raised boardwalk made of wood that wonders through this plateau. There are six signs that describe what you are looking at.
See the above sign for some explanation of what the area produces.
Here is a shot of Barb with the boardwalk and the trees all around.
We also drove through Mendocino a bit. We didn't stop. The town is very quiet and the stores that are open have restricted entries and exits and the usual stuff about distancing and masks. The town is still cute, but we didn't find it compelling enough to get out of the car.
There is a nice beach just down from town and we stopped there for a bit. Here is a shot of some of the rocks that are outside of the beach.
There were a bunch of kyakers going out with their guides from a commercial establishment.
And at that point we wandered back and down to the Yolo harbor area for lunch. We were going to have clam chowder, but "It won't be ready for an hour." So Barb had fish and chips with a diet Coke. "We're out of diet Coke." OK, then some lemonade. I broke my Keto vows and had a Macadamia Nut Porter with my burger (no bun, no fries). The meat was good and the porter was tasty. The dark beers are probably what I miss most on this dietary transformation.
We then wandered back to the camper and relaxed, had a snooze and read. We are now heating some left overs for dinner. Of course the lunch place gave me two burgers not the one I ordered. I may have spoken too quickly and it might have been the mask... Hard to say.
It will probably be a quiet evening. I do have a pinot grigio to try, though I'm not sure it's very cold at this point.
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