Monday Meanderings - 8.24.2015

Enjoyed a couple of days of coffee-on-the patio weather; rare this time of year. And as a bonus, received about an inch of rain during that time frame. The triple digit days are not completely gone, but I think we are on the down hill side of summer.

Barb and I spent a couple of days exploring a new part of California's Pacific Coast Highway. Thus far we have driven just over half of this scenic route - 338 of 655 miles (we have visited portions of it multiple times). This time we focused on northern California - Sonoma and Marin counties. We ranged as far north as Point Arena Lighthouse and then south through Muir Woods and San Francisco to San Jose, our departure point.

Point Arena Lighthouse was interesting. Located on the point of mainland US closest to Hawaii, it was in service from 1870 until the late 1970's (though it is still the site of modern navigation equipment in use today). The 1906 earthquake destroyed the original light house, but it was rebuilt and if you are really, really energetic, you can climb to the top of the present-day 115 foot tower. I'm told the view is spectacular.

The optics for the lighthouse was a set of three 1st Order Fresnel lenses, weighing more than 6 tons. The assembly floated in a bath of mercury and was rotated by a 250 pound weight that slowly dropped the length of the lighthouse. For many years, this weight had to be hand-cranked back to the top every 75 minutes!

We stayed in Bodega Bay, a little coastal village situated on a bay named by Peruvian explorer Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra. Interestingly, there is no evidence that Bodega y Quadra ever visited the bay itself, but he did stay at a Holiday Inn close by. 

The village has a bit of  fame as the filming location of Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds." There is even a tour of the specific filming locations, but we settled for eating at the Tides Wharf restaurant that "burned" in the film itself. There we noticed posters promoting actress Tippi Hedron's annual visit to Bodega Bay later in the Fall. Apparently this is a regular event.