We returned home a little downhearted after Turkish Air canceled the Istanbul-Baghdad segment of our flight to Iraq and sent us back home the next day. With a cat sitter still booked for the entire three weeks, we arranged a Plan B vacation. With the heat at home, I really wanted to be by the ocean. Using VRBO I found a small house in Sea Ranch near Gualala that was available for 3 nights.
Sea Ranch is a planned community in Sonoma County that began in the 1960s. It has received many awards for its architecture and landscaping. Sea Ranch has 10 miles of California Coastline, 7,000 acres, and many miles of trails throughout the community. While the little rental we chose wasn't on the coast, we did have access to the lodge and all the trails.
Some of the scenery along the coastal trail between Sea Ranch and Gualala State Park:
Inland, Sea Ranch has a trail (The Hot Spot) that goes through a redwood forest to the Gualala River. A timeline on a cross section of a cut redwood indicates that the tree began life in 1157 AD and was cut down in 1939. There is a stunning difference in the size of the 782 year old log and the surrounding tall skinny trees that are not yet 100 years old. Groups of trees have grown up in a circle around the cut stumps of the ancestor trees.
Point Arena Lighthouse and Stornetta in Mendocino County are just a few miles north of Gualala. Point Arena-Stornetta is part of the California Coastal National Monument. The California Coastal National Monument consists of 20,000 offshore rocks and islands and all visible land features within 12 nautical miles from the shoreline during high tide.
The Point Arena Lighthouse was first lit in 1870. The lighthouse tower and the keeper's residence were destroyed in the earthquake of 1906. The San Andreas Fault runs very close to Point Arena. A stronger lighthouse began operation in 1908 with a 7-foot diameter, 4,700 pound Fresnel Lens that traveled from France around the horn to California. The Fresnel lens has been replaced witha LED light array in 2015. The Fresnel Lens is on display in the Station Store. Some of the Keeper's homes are available for short-term rental.
On our way back home, we stopped at Fort Ross State Historic Park. Before Fort Ross was built at Metini, it was a centuries-old Kashaya Pomo coastal village. In 1812 members of the Russian-American company built Fort Ross with the help of Alaskan Alutiiq natives. The name "Ross" was bestowed to honor its connection with Imperial Russia--or Rossiia. The fort and it's inner structures were built with redwood. The one structure that is original is the Rotchev House renovated in 1836 and named for Alexander Rotchev, the last manager of Ross. The wide-plank flooring of the Rotchev House was milled from ancient redwood trees. Rotchev lived there with his wife Elena until 1841. Descendants of the Fort's apple trees grow next to the Rotchev House. In 1841 the Russian-American Company sold its Fort Ross holdings to John Sutter and all of the cattle, sheep, and other animals were transported to Sutter's Fort in the Sacramento Valley. Fort Ross is North American's southernmost Russian settlement. It became a state park in 1906.
On October 13 we flew to Chicago to visit friends which really wasn't a Plan B but a continuation of our original Iraq vacation. If we had been able to travel to Iraq and get out again, we planned to stop in Chicago to visit friends. Since we already had plane tickets to get us home from Chicago, we bought another set to get us there from Sacramento.
The first three days of the Chicago visit we stayed with our friend Farangis and her children. We first met Farangis in Tajikistan in 2011. We went to her wedding in Dushanbe and the last time we saw the two oldest children, they were babies. Farangis included us in the family visit to a pumpkin patch with a giraffe named Asanti and a petting zoo. Farangis took us to the wonderful Aquarium in Chicago on the one rainy day. I really enjoyed the Beluga Whales.
We stayed in Chicago City Center the last three days to catch up with friends, Anna and Alex, from Serbia. Dan met Anna, a lawyer, when he was doing some work in Belgrade. We went to their wedding and now they have a very busy almost six year old son. Alex was in Chicago for the Chicago Marathon (October 13). His time was less than 4 hours.
There wasn't much fall color anywhere yet, but the city does a great job of decorating the planting beds for the season. We took an Uber to the Morton Arboretum together and discovered that you really need a car for the visit because it is 1,700 acres in size.
Dan and I took the train to the amazing Griffin Museum of Science + Industry which was a truly worthwhile place to visit. There is so much to play with and see. I have been reading Chip War by Chris Miller so really enjoyed seeing a Silicon Boule (left side) and a Silicon Wafer (middle) similar to those used in smartphones, computers, and other devices. The wafer is sliced from a column of silicon and transitors and electronic circuits are then added to create microchips. As the exhibition states, silicon put the silicon in "Silicon Valley."
The Atomic Energy Lab was sold in 1950. The price tag was high so not many sets were purchased. That was a good thing because while it taught children about a variety of nuclear and chemical reactions using working instruments, it came with uranium-bearing ore samples and radiation sources. There was also a coupon so kids could order more radioactive samples. It is a symbol of the Atomic Age and a collector's item.
We covered a lot of ground making lemonade out of lemons.
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