Fort Bragg and Glass Beach

Jill's Journal: Fort Bragg, a military town before the Civil War and a logging town after it, is the site of several curious attractions today.

I can’t think of too many other places we’d take our daughters into a tattoo parlor. Rob really hesitated at this, but “Triangle Tattoo and Museum” was once called one of the 25 most interesting museums in the U.S. and I figured we had nothing to lose. Plus, they’d told me children were welcome, so it couldn’t be too bad. Right?

Sure enough, it was tiny but interesting with all kinds of memorabilia and information about the history of tattoos, particularly in Polynesia. When the girls learned one Polynesian culture believed the craft was taught to them by a mermaid, they were smitten. However, when they started talking about what kind of tattoos they wanted themselves, we decided it was time to go. :)

I loved the Pudding Creek Trestle with the ocean behind it. There’s just something about train trestles that is so picturesque.

Glass Beach was our main destination and it has to be one of the most unique beaches in the world. It’s hard for us to imagine today, but Fort Bragg residents from 1906 to 1967 threw their trash over these cliffs onto the beach and into the ocean. Apparently this has been done throughout history all over the world in ocean communities. This area was called “The Dump” and was the site of discarded cars, appliances, bottles, etc. Sometimes fires were lit to expedite disposal.

The rock formations and wave patterns around Fort Bragg were created in such a way that matter doesn’t leave the area, but gets tossed about in a sort of natural tumbler. The glass from all this trash has been broken down over the decades and is now in small, smooth pieces that mix with the rocks all over the beach.

Of course the glass is also colored (i.e. the orange stones came from the turn signals of old cars, the purple from apothecary jars, etc.), which only adds to the visual interest of the beach.

We also stopped in at the Sea Glass Museum, which sounds fancier than it is: an itty-bitty little room where a retired sea captain displays his finds.

The lovely Mendocino was also on our agenda today, but a certain 3-year-old was out of sorts and it just didn’t happen. And that’s fine – Rob and I had been once before, long ago, and remember it as a really neat town but probably not of much interest to kids. The entire town is on the National Register of Historic Places and was used as the fictional Maine town in the popular t.v. show from the 80s and 90s, “Murder, She Wrote.”