November 16 – December 31

A week or so after arriving home we participated in a unique cycling event in Los Angeles known as CicLAvia.  Started as a grassroots initiative in 2008 by several individuals who recognized that open streets events could address active transportation, urban land use, and public health needs in Los Angeles.  Inspired by the ciclovía events that started 45 years ago in Bogotá, Colombia, the first CicLAvia was held on October 10, 2010.  Thirteen years and 44 CicLAvias later, more than 1.8 million people have explored nearly 272 miles of open streets in Los Angeles County.

We support the organization with a monthly donation, and this entitles us to a free lunch during each of the open street events.  So, we took advantage of this one as we could easily ride to the start and to the lunch stop, which often occurs about halfway through the route.  We rode down to the Marina and picked up the bike path that took us east along the channel, then off at Duquesne in Culver City and onto Jefferson which took us to Obama Blvd all the way to Exposition and the park there near USC, where we met the CicLAvia route on Martin Luther King Blvd. 

It seems so odd to be riding on a major street with no vehicular traffic, just groups of other cyclists, skaters, walkers, kids in strollers, and other miscellaneous forms of locomotion.  Lunch was at the Tampico Spice Factory, founded in 1947 by Jesus Martinez when he scraped together $35 to buy his first inventory of spices, that he then peddled door-to-door to all the corner markets in the Los Angeles area.  This initial effort enabled him to start one of the first companies in the world to package spices in cellophane bags for enhanced visibility and convenience.

It was a bit of a misty morning throughout the ride, making us glad to have our lightweight jackets on as we stopped for a delicious lunch, soft tacos (beef, chicken, or veggie) and couple of different kinds of Latin American juice drinks.  We filled our tanks, so to speak, and satiated, returned to the bikes for the ride home.

The rest of December flew by and soon we found ourselves back on the I-5 heading to Oakland to spend Christmas and New Year’s with Jessica, Kris and Gemma at their house.  Two days before Christmas we enjoyed a cookie decorating event at Line 51, Gemma’s favorite brewery (and one of ours as well) where we enjoyed some holiday brews, a hot dog or two, perhaps an Italian Beef sandwich as well and watched dozens of sugar fortified kids make cookies for taking home. 

Two days after the holiday we took off for Fort Bragg for a three nights, cutting over to the coast from the 101 to follow Roblar Road and Valley Ford Road for a stop in Bodega Bay at Inn at the Tides for some clam chowder.  It’s large facility with lodging and a nice restaurant, but best of all for us a snack bar overlooking the bay where we ordered soups, a classic clam and a fish stew. 

As can be the case with us, that clam chowder would start a trend this trip of ordering it whenever we could to compare versions, and I can honestly say this one was one of the best. 

We left heading north, taking nearly two hours to traverse the sixty-seven miles it took to get to the Point Arena Lighthouse, where some form of this function has existed since 1870.  The original brick and mortar structure was struck In 1906 by the San Francisco earthquake and the keeper’s residence and lighthouse were damaged so severely that they had to be demolished.

The United States Lighthouse Board contracted with a San Francisco-based company to build a new lighthouse on the site and specified that it had to withstand earthquakes.  The company chose normally built factory smokestacks, which accounts for the final design for the new Point Arena Lighthouse, featuring steel reinforcement rods encased in concrete.  This was the first lighthouse built this way.

The new lighthouse began operation in 1908, nearly 18 months after the quake.  It stands 115 ft tall, and featured a 1st Order Fresnel Lens, over six feet in diameter and weighing more than six tons.  The lens was made up of 666 hand-ground glass prisms, all focused toward three sets of double bullseyes.  These bullseyes gave Point Arena Lighthouse its unique “light signature” of two flashes every six seconds.  The optics, which held an appraised value of over $3.5 million, were set in solid brass framework and built in France.

In 1977 an automated aircraft-type beacon was installed on the balcony tower, and the historic 1st Order Fresnel Lens was discontinued.  At the time, the lens was the only mercury-floated light still in existence in the Twelfth United States Coast Guard District.  In 1978, the station’s original fog signal was silenced, and a bell buoy was placed nearby.  In 1984, a nonprofit organization called the Point Arena Lighthouse Keepers acquired the light station as part of a 25-year land lease from the Coast Guard and the Department of Transportation.  In November 2000, the nonprofit group became the official owners of the property due to its diligent historic preservation and educational efforts. The Point Arena Light is California Historical Landmark No. 1035.

We opted not to climb to the top of the lighthouse, instead visiting the museum, which is housed in the Fog Signal Building; built in 1896 it is the oldest structure on the property it contains the Fresnel Lens and informative displays of Lighthouse history, technology, and artifacts.  It also enjoys commanding views up and down the coast, all inside the sheltered confines of the building out of the cold and windy conditions outdoors. 

We finished up at the lighthouse and continued driving north, passing Mendocino and Russian Gulch State Park as we eventually entered Fort Bragg to stay for three nights at the Emerald Dolphin Inn, where we have stayed twice before during previous visits.  We were assigned a ground floor King Suite in the two-story complex across the street from the main building and its units, which gave us plenty of room to spread out and store our bikes.  We settled in and got ready for the next couple of days, including finding dinner that night.  We’ll cover that in the next post. 

inks

CicLAvia: https://www.ciclavia.org/

Tampico Spice Factory: https://www.tampicospice.com/

Inn at the Tides: https://www.innatthetides.com/

Point Arena Lighthouse: https://pointarenalighthouse.com/

Emerald Dolphin Inn: https://www.emeralddolphin.com/