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Skunk Train – Mendocino County, CA

By on Mar 18, 2019 in Historical |

In August of 2017, I took a trip which included Safari West, the Skunk Train, Glass Beach and the Mendocino cliffs. This time I’ll share the Skunk Train. The good and the bad thing about keeping a blog is that I can compare my progress. This was taken not quite 2 years ago, but I can really tell that my eye has developed a lot since then. Not only that, but my technical skill is increasing as well. Makes me excited to see where I’ll be in the next couple of years! The historic Skunk Train is in Mendocino County, California in Redwoods country. It’s a logging train, historically speaking, and this area is still active logging country. On this same trip, I went to Glass Beach right over the hill from the Skunk Train, and turned out it was Paul Bunyan Days – a local celebration of loggers. Totally unplanned! While now the Skunk Train appears to be used primarily...

The Victorian Mansion B&B – Los Alamos, CA

By on Apr 15, 2018 in Historical |

There is a little town nearby called Los Alamos, CA. It’s a bedroom community which got a major shot in the arm when Kurt Russel et al decided to purchase the saloon attached to the 1880 Union Hotel. Since then, the little town has been booming, relatively speaking. It’s still a tiny place with maybe 100 homes and about 10 businesses – most of which are antique stores. Besides some rustic charm, there are two main features of the town which I fell in love in. (1) The Victorian Mansion Bed & Breakfast – The Vic – which is the subject of this post. (2) The 1880 Union Hotel – which will be a future adventure. In case it’s not clear, that is a DATE not an address. This nerdy self is definitely looking forward to staying in a century plus hotel which looks completely period – as in not-revamped. Apparently though it was refurbished in...

La Purisima Mission – Lompoc, CA

By on Feb 26, 2018 in Historical |

Last weekend (Sat, Feb 17, 2018) I took a little road trip to the La Purisima Mission in Lompoc, California. For those not in the area, that’s pronounced Lom-POKE. Unlike the missions in Santa Ynez and Santa Barbara, which are still active churches, this mission is a pure historic park. The mission itself was reconstructed starting in the 1930s. Based on the visual records the Welcome Center shares, by that point in time the mission was little more than a couple of rubble walls. So pretty much everything about the park today is a reconstruction — though there were some cool original tallow vats along side a recreation. I come from the East Coast, and I have to admit that I had never heard of the missions before – built in the late 1700s roughly one day’s walk from each other up along the coast. Pretty much, as far as my public education history was concerned,...

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