Gold, Wood, Glass, and Frank

October 1 Friday

After a nice breakfast of cereal and bananas we check out of the Super-Super 8 by presenting the clerk with a Golden DeLorean. It was such a nice place that we had to do something to let them know that we appreciated them. Plus, now he can demonstrate where to park with a toy DeLorean, rather than a yellow Camero!

Onward to more redwoods. The Avenue of the Giants is not far away so we travel through, taking pictures and videos. It's a place that you would expect to only exist in fairy tales.

These are giant trees! Our first stop is at the Shrine Tree, it’s part of a redwood play area of sorts. There’s the tree to drive through, 2 playhouses and a fallen tree you can drive up on. We only drove through the tree.

The next tree, Chandelier is a beautiful living tree. The best of the three, and a nice shop with friendly staff. With a few passes, I think we have the pics and video we need. We do a bit of shopping in the gift shop and drive on down the road to Fort Bragg, Ca. Not to be confused with Fort Bragg NC. At Fort Bragg there is a place called Glass Beach. It’s history is that the area had been used as a dump and over the years has created it’s own unusual sand. Glass bits that have been broken and polished by the sea and sand can be found sparkling in the sunshine. We find two children running barefoot along the waterline of the glass beach, with the mother following (holding their shoes for them.)

-Not judging; just sayin’.

Another overcast day for us, but the beach still sparkles with glass, white, green and brown are the most prevalent. Colors. It’s an amazing place. The waves are more powerful and larger than our Myrtle Beach ocean. No wonder surfers love California.

Onward, we pass through a small town with a cinema, the ‘Egyptian Theatre’ playing ‘Night of the Living Dead’ -from the 1960’s! $1 gets you in to see the film, which is in black and white. 25¢ popcorn too! We later hear that the theatre still has the old organ in it, but we must press onward, as the movie isn’t playing in the daytime. On the next stop along the coast to take seaside pictures we meet an older gentleman who’s first statement is “so you are raising money for Team Fox.’ This is so unexpected and refreshing! Not the usual question we get! He’d taken a moment to carefully study and read the signs and wanted to make a donation. His donation is in memory of his friend Frank who’d passed away earlier in the week. He was sad but really glad to see the Time Machine because before Frank passed away, they’d gone together to see his favorite movie at the Egyptian Theater, ‘Back to the Future.’ He wished he could have seen us and the car. I’d like to think that Frank was watching this chance meeting from above. Our extremely random moment may have even been his way of saying, ‘Thank you for your friendship!’
A hug, in the form of a stainless steel time machine, appearing at just the right moment. It was magical.