Fort Bragg

I finally got a chance to look through our photos from our trip to Fort Bragg over Labor Day weekend. Yes, we took just a few-maybe 800 in 4 days? We were very excited to be there.

My parents, Dan & I drove nearly 4 hours north to Fort Bragg in Mendocino county for a quick get away to celebrate my 25th birthday. We left around 8am which was far too late for my mom. She preferred that we leave at 4am!

The road there was very much a zig zag for the last hour of the drive. We were so excited that we drove straight to glass beach around 12pm. Lunch, bathroom break? Not us! Here is my mom sharing her finds after our arrival.
After we explored for a short while, Dad, Dan, and I left Mom on the beach to find food. We grabbed some grub at the North Coast Brewing Company. We order some sustenance for Mom (to go) and headed back to the beach.

Glass beach used to be used as a dump and that is why all the glass comes up on the shore. Its not very clean and has hazard signs all over the place. We found lots of shoe soles, random wire of all sorts, and spark plugs.
We had the most fun when the tide was at its lowest, after most people left for the day. We made some great friends while searching for treasures.


We had so much fun that our one night excursion turned into a very spontaneous weekend retreat. We stayed until 6:30pm before finally heading to our hotel for a shower and sleep.

Sunday we went to Sea Glass Jewelry & Museum. We had a great time seeing all of Captain Cass's finds and chatting with him. He is such a character. My parents got me a beautiful aqua pendant from the store before stopping by a few antique shops. We found a few little pieces of vintage glass that stood out to us.
We went back to the beach and ran into our friends from the previous day. I learned lots of new techniques for finding rare colors of glass and spent more time chatting with our new found friends.
The weather was still pretty overcast but we did not mind it one bit. I got a little sunburned from spending so much time out in the fog. We went to dinner at Silvers at the Wharf at Noyo River. I found someone left a camera on my chair, so I gave it to the waitress. I can't imagine if I left my camera behind and someone else kept it. I took a few night shots before heading in.
The next morning we went to the Fort Bragg Botanical Gardens along the coast. We spent quite a bit of time goofing off with our cameras and taking many photos. Lisa was so wonderful, she lent me her incredible Nikkor 105 macro lens for the trip.
My favorite part was the Dahlia Garden. They couldn't drag me out of there! Photo by Bev Jacquemet.I got really lucky with the lighting and early morning dew on the flowers. I am really excited about how some of my macro shots turned out.

The beautiful view of the ocean while still in the Botanical gardens.
As we were walking to the beach, I saw a float from the Labor Day parade that had a bear skin on it. I was caught completely off guard since I'm used to seeing Bears in Yosemite, but wouldn't have thought I'd see bear skins in Fort Bragg!

We returned to the beach one last time to see if we could find a few last minute treasures. We ran into our friends Craig & Theresa again. We were so excited to see them three days in a row. We spent the remaining time completely in the water, running from waves as we grabbed treasures that each wave brought. The last day was by far my favorite because of the adrenaline rush. We left around 3pm to drive back home. When we stopped for a bathroom break, I got extremely lucky. There was a bead store, Legendary Beads, right across the street from Burger King! I shopped quickly and found some unique things for my crafting. We got stuck in a lot of traffic near the Golden Gate Bridge since the Bay Bridge was closed for construction. We had a wonderful and spontaneous trip to Fort Bragg.

My parents had such a great time, they are leaving for Fort Bragg tomorrow morning.