This week I’ll continue with a few more posts from our recent
vacation in Mendocino, CA. First up,
Glass Beach at Fort Bragg, California –
As Mary and I started researching some of the sites we could
visit while we were on the North Coast, I came across the Fort Bragg Chamber of
Commerce website, and from there I learned about “Glass Beach,” which is part
of MacKerricher State Park. There’s a
beautiful traditional beach there, but the surprise is the namesake phenomenon.
Apparently, this stretch of beach was used as the town dump
for a few decades. There was an
industrial site (I seem to remember some lumber facilities from past visits) there
too, which eventually led to closing off the dump. The sea did its incredible, inexhaustible
work and broke done everything that was tossed there, leaving only polished sea
glass behind.
We made a point to visit and also to hike along the beach
there. While collecting the glass is
discouraged, and there are signs to that effect, there were several people out
there scooping up fragments – it’s a popular complaint that most of the
colorful pieces are gone (we heard this in the CVS where we asked for
directions, and from a woman we met walking there who is a docent at one of the
other heritage facilities nearby).
Mary scooped up a handful to show how accidentally beautiful
the place is. There is literally no sand
– all polished glass.
There’s a Wikipedia page here, if you want to look into
it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Beach_(Fort_Bragg,_California)
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