Cleone to Manchester

Captions from the top: Greg at a cookie shop!, Manchester Beach Sunset from the campground, Coastal view along the way

11/08/09
Day 23
44 miles
Cleone (MacKerricher State Park) to Manchester Beach State Park (Manchester) California

Today we got an alright start to the day and rolled in to Fort Bragg around 10. One of the first shops we saw was the Mendocino Cookie Company. We had to stop because we love cookies, and there was a wireless hotspot. We entered in all of our blogs prior to this entry at the Cookie Co. We tried some really good cookies and then got on our way. We passed through lots of cute little towns along the coast. This section and the next several to follow are very hilly. The views of the ocean were spectacular with large rocks jutting out in the sea. I really love the smell of the salty, fishy, ocean breeze. Also, it seems weird but I am pretty sure that dill (the common spice plant) has become noxious in California. There are so many dill plants along the road I can't even believe it. Greg and I are both wishing we could identify all of the different tree species we are seeing along the road. We are not familiar with them and there are so many new species.

Greg came up with a new idea for keeping food away from the omnipresent raccoons. Tonight we had no box to keep food in and no tree to hang food from, so Greg thought to turn the BOB trailer over and use it as kind of a cage to keep the food safe from prying raccoon hands. We put the food panniers under the middle of the trailer and then lined the outside with hard, inedible objects like helmets and pots and pans. This worked well and they didn't get into the food, though we heard them trying relentlessly.

At Manchester Beach State Park we camped across the road from a pasture full of dairy cows. We set up our tent as the sun was setting and we could see Mendocino lighthouse way off in the distance. The sunset was amazing and the clouds spread across the sky kind of like a big lace curtain.

Dani