Arrival in Mendocino, wine/cider social, dinner and orientation program

Arrive To: Check into the Mendocino Hotel and register for program. The town was founded in 1850 as a logging community, and was originally named Meiggsville after Henry Meiggs. Many of its early settlers were New Englanders, as was true with many older Northern California towns. Its economy declined after 1940, and it became a somewhat isolated village until discovered by the region's art community. Since 1987 it has been the site of the Mendocino Music Festival, a classically-based but musically diverse series of concerts that is held annually in a huge circus type performance tent on the town's Main Street in the Mendocino Headlands State Park.

Dinner: Wine/cider social in the hotel meeting room. Plated dinner is served in the Garden Room. The Mendocino Hotel is the only remaining Hotel from a time when Mendocino was a booming port for the logging trade. The original structure of the Hotel, dating to 1878, remains today and encompasses the lobby, the lobby bar, the dining room, the kitchen and upstairs rooms. The Hotel itself speaks much about the town and its history. It originally opened as The Temperance House in a time when the town was burgeoning with 20,000 people (as compared to 1,000 today). It was considered, according to current Hotel management, as “the one bastion of good Christian morals in a town of loggers.” Mendocino was reportedly home to 19 saloons during the logging industry’s heyday, and there was no shortage of pool halls and “fast houses” in town, either.

Evening: We spend an evening getting acquainted and learning about our program in the hotel meeting room.

Lodging: Mendocino Hotel

Meals Included: Dinner

We visit the Ford House Museum, learn about the area's natural history, enjoy a walk on the Mendocino Headlands and learn about the Chinese in Mendocino

Breakfast: We have a full buffet breakfast in the hotel's Garden Room.

Morning: We visit the Ford House Museum & Visitor's Center across the street from the hotel for a presentation on local history and film of Big River State Park. Jerome B. Ford, superintendent of the town's first sawmill and one of the founders of Mendocino, had the house built for his bride, Martha, in 1854. The Ford House offers both historic and current information about the area, with a broad selection of brochures, books, and cards. A number of videos are available upon request, with topics ranging from the steam whistle logging era of the early Twentieth Century to the amazing story of gray whale migration. 7,400 acres of the Big River watershed were purchased in March 2002 in a campaign of national scope, and this land will shortly become California’s newest state park. In the meantime, it is attached to the Mendocino Headlands State Park as the Big River Unit. A logging road follows the river for many miles, making for a pleasant walk or bike ride. Return to hotel for class on natural history of the area with director of local nature center.

Lunch: Our lunch is served in the Garden Room.

Afternoon: We join a museum docent for a walk on the Mendocino Headlands to discuss the significance of "dog hole" ports and lumbering along the northern California coast. The Headlands Park features grass-covered headlands and a beach, with access from the mouth of the Big River south of town. Trails are popular with hikers and joggers. In winter, the park provides a site for whale watching. Each dog-hole port was unique which was why schooner captains often sailed back and forth to the same ports to load. The mariners were often forced to load right among the rocks and cliffs in the treacherous surf. A former schooner master said, “You couldn’t use a deepwater skipper for that kind of work. He would die of fright. Sailing right up to the cliffs–you’ve got to get used to it. A deepwaterman never did.”

Dinner: We are served a plated dinner in the Garden Room.

Evening: Our evening program is a lecture by an instructor from the local college who talks about her family's history which includes the history of the Chinese in Mendocino and the foundation of one of the original Chinese temples in California. Dedicated to the Chinese god of war - a Taoist symbol of integrity and loyalty, the Temple of Kwan Tai offers living evidence of Mendocino's 19th Century Chinese community. Four generations of its founders' descendents have preserved this original Taoist temple, a site now recognized as California Registered Historic Landmark No. 927.

Lodging: Mendocino Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We visit Kelley House Museum, learn about the Woodland Wildlife Center, visit the Kwan Tai Temple and hear from the woman who played Bonnie Blue Bell in "Gone With the Wind"

Breakfast: A full buffet breakfast in the Garden Room.

Morning: We visit Kelley House Museum, 1/2 block from hotel. The Kelley House Museum is an historic home built in 1861, which offers exhibits on the cultural heritage of the Mendocino Coast. It interprets Mendocino's logging and shipping industries and the unique Victorian architecture for which the town is recognized as a National Historic Preservation District. The setting is enhanced by a pond and gardens. We learn more about the area history, including a visit to the town archives with the museum director.

Lunch: We enjoy lunch served in the Garden Room.

Afternoon: Ronnie James found her calling when she received a phone call from veterinarian Jan Dietrich. Dr. Dietrich knew Ronnie had volunteered at the Raptor Center in Davis, CA and wanted to know if she could provide a home for a Great Horned Owl that he had saved. Giving shelter to wildlife is not as easy as it would seem. An ordinary citizen is not allowed to keep wildlife unless he or she has federal and state licenses. And the only way to keep wildlife that cannot be returned to the wild is to have additional federal and state licenses as a wildlife educator. Ronnie pursued all of these licenses, and Woodlands Wildlife was born. Ronnie joins us for a fascinating presentation about her work and the Woodlands Wildlife Center. We walk a few blocks from the hotel for a guided visit to the Temple of Kwan Tai.

Dinner: We are served a plated dinner in the Garden Room.

Evening: Enjoy a free evening to relax and visit with new friends.

Lodging: Mendocino Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Our field trip takes us to Pt. Cabrillo Lighthouse, Mendocino Botanical Gardens, MacKerricher State Park and the Pygmy Forest

Breakfast: A fluu buffet breakfast in the Garden Room.

Morning: We board the motor coach for field trip to Pt. Cabrillo Lighthouse, Mendocino Botanical Gardens and Fort Bragg. The Mendocino coast was home to hundreds of sawmills. The demand for lumber became even greater after the 1906 earthquake and conflagration in San Francisco, and that same year Congress appropriated $50,000 for a lighthouse on Point Cabrillo. Construction on the station, which was considered one of the most desirable assignments in the district due to its proximity to supplies and a school, began in 1908. The combination lighthouse and fog signal building resembles a small church with a 47-foot octagonal tower attached to the eastern end of the small one-and-a-half-story fog signal building. Two eighteen-horsepower engines housed in the building ran an air compressor that powered twin sirens protruding from the western end of the roof. A third-order Fresnel lens, manufactured in England by Chance Brothers, was installed in the lantern room. To produce a white flash every ten seconds, the four-sided lens was made to revolve three times every two minutes, using a weight suspended in the tower. Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden, the only public garden to front directly on the Pacific Coast, was founded in 1961 by retired nurseryman Ernest Schoefer and his wife,Betty. Ernest's keen eye spotted the ample supply of water augmented by the mild coastal climate and quality soil essential to acid-loving plants like Rhododendrons.The Grand Opening of the Garden was in 1966. By 1992, the Gardens had been purchased with grants from the California Coastal Conservancy and transferred to the Mendocino Coast Recreation and Park District.

Lunch: In prehistoric days, the area now known as Fort Bragg was home to the Native American Indians, most of whom belonged to the Pomo tribe. They were hunter-gatherers who lived close to the land and sea along the northern coast of California. In the summer of 1857, First Lieutenant Horatio G. Gibson, then serving at the Presidio in San Francisco, established a military post on the Mendocino Indian Reservation approximately one and one-half miles north of the Noyo River. He named the camp for his former commanding officer Captain Braxton Bragg, who later became a General in the Army of the Confederacy. The official date of the establishment of the fort was June 11, 1857. Its purpose was to maintain order on the reservation.By 1867 the reservation and military outpost at Fort Bragg were abandoned. By 1869 small lumber mills were being built at the mouth of every creek. Ranches were settled. By 1873 Fort Bragg had an established lumber port at Noyo. Fort Bragg was incorporated in 1889. We enjoy a picnic lunch at MacKerricher State Park. MacKerricher State Park offers a variety of habitats; beach, bluff, headland, dune, forest and wetland. Tidepools are along the shore. Seals live on the rocks off the park’s Mendocino coast. More than 90 species of birds visit or live near Cleone Lake, a formal tidal lagoon. During winter and spring, the nearby headland provides a good lookout for whale watching.

Afternoon: After lunch we take a walk along the park's boardwalk with a knowledgeable local instructor. We have a chance to observe the harbor seals, grey whales depending on the season and many species of shore and pellagic birds. We board the motor coach and continue our field trip to view the Pygmy Forest with our instructor.The Pygmy Forest in Van Damme State Park is truly Lilliputian. Sixty-year-old cypress trees are but a few feet tall and measure a half-inch in diameter. Our walk takes us along a nature trail, built upon an elevated wooden walkway, looping through the Pygmy Forest. The Pygmy Forest is truly unique with mature, cone-bearing cypress and pine trees the may stand six inches to eight feet tall.

Dinner: We are served a plated dinner in the Garden Room.

Evening: We watch the 1956 American Comedy movie "The Russians Are Coming!" which was filmed in Mendocino.. Based on the Nathaniel Benchley juvenile novel, The Off-Islanders, it was adapted for the screen by William Rose. The movie tells the Cold War story of the comedic chaos which ensues when the Soviet submarine, Спрут (Sprut, Squid), accidentally runs aground near a small New England town.

Lodging: Mendocino Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We spend the morning at the famed Mendocino Art Center with artist-guided studio viisits, then visit the much photographed Presbyterian Church. Our day concludes with a musical program.

Breakfast: Full buffet breakfast in the Garden Room.

Morning: We will visit Mendocino Art Center, 4 blocks from hotel. The Center's director will give us an Introduction to its history followed by classes with resident artists.The Mendocino Art Center is a very special place overlooking the ocean from the top of the headlands. We have been a haven for professional artists and all levels of students since 1959. Today the Art Center is still a retreat away from the stress and clamor of the workaday world, where the soul can breath, the imagination takes wing, creativity realizes itself—and new acquaintances turn into friendships. The Mendocino Art Center is an educational, exhibition, and resource center for the visual and performing arts located 150 miles north of San Francisco in the quiet coastal village of Mendocino. The Art Center has earned national and international reputations which attract an impressive selection of renowned faculty members, yet has remained small enough for productive dialogues between students and teachers, professional artists and beginners.

Lunch: We return to the hotel for Lunch served in the Garden Room.

Afternoon: We walk to the historic Presbyterian Church, 3 blocks from hotel. A church docent tells us about the church, its role in films and its interestng bell pull. In 1854, the first Protestant services in this infant village on Big River were conducted in the gangmill cookhouse of the Mendocino Lumber Company. Then, as now, the attendance was a blend of religious persuasions. The first ministers to conduct worship services were Methodists. Almost four years passed before other visiting ministers came – Baptist and Congregational. In 1858, realizing that the small congregation needed a permanent Sanctuary for worship, Jerome B. Ford and William Heeser were elected to collect subscriptions to build the first church in Mendocino, a small building on the northeast corner of Lansing and Ukiah Streets, across from the future location of the Masonic Temple. The present Sanctuary, started on October 7, 1867, was built of local redwood for a cost of $10,000. Half of this sum, as well as the land the church was built on, was donated by Jerome B. Ford. The new building was dedicated on July 5, 1868, with a sermon preached by the Reverend Dr. Laurentine Hamilton (for whom Mt. Hamilton is named), pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Oakland. Architects S.C. Bugbee and Son of San Francisco designed the English Gothic edifice that faced the ocean on the Old Coast Road coming up from the river flats. This thoroughfare has now passed from use, but when the church was built, it was the main entrance from Big River crossing into town. That is why the church now seems to turn its back on Main Street. .

Dinner: A plated dinner is served in the Garden Room.

Evening: We enjoy our final evening together with musical entertainment in hotel meeting room or a visit to Mendocino Theater to attend a production (dependent on theater schedule.)

Lodging: Mendocino Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: A light breakfast snack is available in the Garden Room.

Morning: Our final class is an exploration of the culture of the local Pomo Indians with examples of thsir crafts and customs. The word 'Pomo' which some believe is derived from Poma, the name of a particular village, was given to these people by anthropologists at the turn of the century. Because of similarities of their basketry and culture, anthropologists conveniently saw them as one group. Actually, there are more than 70 different tribes within what is known as Pomo country as well as 7 different languages, but only 3 are still spoken.

Brunch: Our farewell buffet brunch is served in the Garden Room and we review the program highlights and say our goodbys. Please check out of the hotel by noon.

Meals Included: Breakfast, Brunch