The Vacation - Part 6

Well I tried hard to bore you last week and I am going to do the same for a few days this week as I continue with more vacation pictures.

In the 1800's Eureka, CA, was a lumber town.

The house below was built by the lumber mill owner and has been kept up as a private club. Unfortunately there are no tours.


The magnificent Carson Mansion, is perhaps the most spectacular Victorian in the nation. The home was built between 1884-1886 by renowned 19th Century architects Newsom and Newsom for lumber baron William M. Carson. This project was designed to keep mill workers and expert craftsman busy during a slow period in the industry.


This three-dimensional "pattern-book" took over one hundred men over two years to construct.


In addition to the abundant use of redwood, Mr. Carson imported 97,000 feet of primavera or "white mahogany" from Central America, along with other woods and onyx from the Philippines, East India, and Mexico. The elaborate interiors include stained glass, plasterwork, and carved ornaments in exotic woods.

Other houses in the town.




Eureka provided an amazing glimpse of early Victorian architecture.

From Eureka we were headed to Fort Bragg to ride the Skunk Train through another area of redwoods.


Different trees along our drive proved to be another interesting sight as they created a tunnel-like effect.



After seeing the beauty of the redwoods we were excited when we arrived at Fort Bragg with anticipation of the next day's train adventure riding the rails through more of the redwoods.

Two types of luck happened after we arrived.

The bad luck was finding the scheduled train for the next day had been canceled. The good luck was prior to staying an additional day we learned about the cancellation so we did not waste a day in Fort Bragg as there is not a whole lot to do there.

So what is the next best thing if the train is not running?

Shopping, of course. So the next day we were off to Mendecino, CA.

What a great little town that turned out to be with a huge area of the old houses turned into shops.


This picture was taken from the sidewalk in front of one of the shops. How would working be with a view like that?

Tomorrow vacation part 7