RV Adventure – Fort Bragg, CA – NNs On the Wind

April 23, 2019April 28, 2019 Kathleen Ennen

APR 20, 2019 – Fort Bragg, CA

Fort Bragg, CA is a small coastal town founded in 1857. It spent it’s heyday as a fishing and seafaring community and supported a vast logging industry. The railroad played a large part in its development. The trains stopped servicing the area and fishing and tourism became the local economy. We didn’t see any boats go out but there were signs that sport fishing is offered perhaps when the weather is a bit warmer and much less windy.

We took several walks both into town, to the waterfront on the Noyo River and out along the coastal bluffs. The northern CA coast is breath taking!!!

Our campsite at a nearby RV Campground (note not resort!) was up a bit of a rise. We could see the ocean from our window, with enough clarity to see the whitecaps! We could almost see the sun set but did see it most of the way down. It was very quiet except for the sea buoys nearby. A groaner mark a bit offshore and a horn at the end of the breakwater at the entrance to the Noyo River. Nice noises.

APR 21, 2019 – Fort Bragg, CA

APR 23, 2019 – Fort Bragg, CA

Today we walked from the campground in search of the walking path to the nearby beach. We found a small path between two houses on a street not far from our site. We followed it and it came to a steep and muddy pathway down to the small beach where the Hare Creek enters the ocean. Thom explored the other side to see if there was a way back out. He waved me along so off with the shoes and securing my camera I waded across where it was the shallowest and offered the most sandy spots amongst all the rocks. When I got to the other side, the sand was very warm and by the time I caught up with Thom my feet were dry enough to brush the sand off and put my shoes back on. Nice!!!

We walked up the hill and out to a college and residential area before finding the bluffs along the coast, once again. Another beautiful day of blue sky and water with waves against the bluffs. We leave tomorrow and go inland to the forest of giant redwoods. Should be different!!!

We have traveled over the years and retired in 2017, when we started on a nine month long adventure departing in December 2017. In the past we’ve traveled to Sri Lanka, Africa (several times), Turkey, and made a number of trips to Europe, and St Lucia. Our 2015 trip to Turkey, took nearly 3 weeks to explore Istanbul, Cappadocia and the areas in proximity to Izmir.

This is a chronicle of our travels, past and present. We love to travel by trains, planes, ships, and cars – and love sailing whenever and wherever we can.

We retired from the US General Services Administration, the Federal Government’s landlord! Thom worked at planning and large scale program management of numerous projects and Kathleen, a registered professional civil engineer, was a project manager for many infrastructure and building renovation projects, including both design and construction aspects, in New England, Florida and the metro DC area. We lived in Washington DC for 12 years and upon retirement sold the house, putting a few things in a 5’x5’ storage unit and started traveling.

On return to the US in September 2018, after traveling to 21 countries, we bought a Class C RV – 2019 Thor Freedom Elite 24FE. We enjoyed our week long camping trip in New Zealand in a small converted van with few amenities, so this seemed liked a good way to tour the US. We hope to visit family along the way and as many US National Parks as possible.

UPDATE – the Covid pandemic made travel more difficult for us. We were abroad for several months when the pandemic started and returned to the US in July 2020. After several months in the RV to visit Utah and Albuquerque NM, we moved east, bought a house on the Northern Neck of Virginia, and sold the RV. For 2021 and 2022 we tended to our new house and cottage, gardens and various boats including a 18’ 1977 Marshall Sanderling catboat and a 25’ Steiger Craft Chesapeake fishing boat, and kayaks and a canoe. Hopefully travel will start again one day!!

May 2022