Day 196 Fort Bragg – Bodega Bay, CA 2

We awoke to sunshine, had breakfast, showers then wandered down to the beach next to which we camped. Beautiful day. After pack up our first stop was at Glass Beach, which I had heard of before. Turns out it wasn’t really a beach but a series of very small beaches between steep craggy cliffs. Not much to look at until we got down and noticed most of the sand was shiny, smoothed glass bits. We figured it was the remains of a military base and landfill of the area many years earlier – not so nice. Another spot where the Indians had been kicked off their land, they turned the old growth forest to planks, then a war base…. Sad history.

Anyways we carried on into the sunshine down the incredibly beautiful highway 1 – lots of turns, tall pamper grass, outcropping rocks and cliffs. A few picture stops above beaches, then we had lunch at a little American cafe near Pont Arena. We carried on south past a few road works, until it was time to scout for a campsite. If we got too close to San Fran, it becomes impossible to find a walk in site, and private ones near by are super expensive. 

We drove past Bodega inland, it got quite smokey so we turned back and camped at the Bodega Dunes State park for the night. I picked up grocery supplies while Tanguy went to get a site, came back to him very stuck in the sand!! He cut a corner and his back end just sunk in… A passing evacuee helped us get it out (after Tanguy had removed all the weight that he could). These campers like many others had mandatory evacuation orders from further inland due to the fires. Which lucky for us meant free camping and showers for everybody in a bid to help out those displaced.

After we had set up we had dinner at a restaurant in town, then back to bed on the pleasantly warm evening.

–Zoe