The 2013 Windsor-Detroit MG Club Fall Colors Tour

Come take an autumn drive with John and Monique and about 25 British sports cars from the Windsor-Detroit MG Club on the club's final driving expedition of the year, the Fall Colors Tour.

We gathered in the parking lot of the Ward Presbyterian Church in Northville: 

The first part of the drive took us up and down Hines Drive, a lovely windy road with the fall colors at peak. We followed another black MGB, a lovely 1980 Limited Edition model:

The end of Hines Drive.

But not the end of the cruise. We were off to the Ostbaum Orchard for cider and donuts.

Ooops. I know this is hard to believe, but one of our old British sports cars, a red MG Midget, suffered an electrical failure. Fortunately, a dozen of us quickly gathered around to offer contradictory advice, while another half-dozen gathered to give advice about the advice giving. 

Rather more fortunately, one guy in the crowd both knew what he was doing and had a circuit tracer in his car -- an excellent acoutrement for the antique British sports car owner. With a loose ignition wire hooked back up we were soon back on the road.

After a few wrong turns that left British cars scattered all about Western Wayne County, most of us managed to make it to Ostbaum's: 

 

In addition to the MGs, the expedition had several Triumphs and a trio of Austin-Healey 3000s. This was one of the Austin-Healeys.

After an excellent round of cider and donuts it was time to hop back in the cars...

And head on down the road...

To the Deadwood Bar & Grill in Northville:

Where a fine afternoon meal was had by all. We hope you all enjoyed our ride, too!

Special thanks to Ed Fleming for organizing the event again this year. It was a great afternoon of Autumn driving!

A Couple of Walks among the Coastal Redwoods

Monique and I decided to visit some tall trees while we were traveling along the northern coast of California. The original plan involved getting up early in the morning after our stop in McKinleyville to visit Redwood National and State Park to hike to the "Tall Trees" grove in Redwood National Park, home of several trees that are more than 350 feet tall.

Unfortunately, Redwood National Park was closed due to a federal government shutdown engineered by bungling US House Republicans. Fortunately, it's Redwood National and State Park, a joint federal/state operation. Since California is not run by delusional Tea Partiers, the state portions of the joint park were all still open.

And they were lovely!

We started at the Prairie Creek park headquarters, which was built by the CCC during the Great Depression. The guy behind the counter at the gift shop gave us three great recommendations: the two-mile Prairie Creek loop trail from the HQ out to "Big Tree"; the Klamath River Overlook up the coast; and Howland Hill Road; a little dirt road through Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.

Here are some photos from our walk along Prairie Creek:

After only a few hundred feet we realized the dude at the desk had set us on a righteous course. What I've always loved about walking among redwoods is the sense of time and scale combined with real peacefulness. It's impossible to rush among the redwoods.

I respect a tree that can make me look skinny.

If you look carefully at that tiny bright spot just above the ferns in the bottom of the photo you can spot Monique, a bit overexposed by a ray of sunlight.

The lush quiet and beauty extends to the forest's undergrowth. Here we see a big-leaf maple just taking on its fall colors.

This was one of my favorite redwoods along the trail. It was easily 300+ feet tall. Two hundred feet above the forest floor the main branch splits into two trunks. Each of those giant redwood trunks soars another hundred feet or more above the split.

Monique respects a tree trunk that makes her look short.

Tree after tree like this.

Here I am with "Big Tree" which was indeed big, thought it wasn't the tallest of the many trees along the trail. Big Tree is 300+ feet tall, 22 feet in diameter, and at least 1,500 years old. Big Tree was an important tree in the history of the protection of the park. A rumor that a homesteader planned to cut it down to convert the stump into a dance floor was one of the spurs that led to the foundation of the Save the Redwoods League in 1918.

In 1850 the coastal redwood forests covered 2,000,000 acres. There are now only 118,000 acres of old-growth redwoods left.

So peaceful.

So inspiring.

And then, after a few hours walking among the redwoods, it was time to head North. Next stop, the Klamath River overlook:

The overlook sits on a bluff about 800-feet above the mouth of the Klamath River. The view is truly spectacular.  It was, however, more than a wee bit windy up there that day. So we headed to lower altitudes and lunched next to the Ocean in the aptly named "False Klamath Cove" beach near Wilson Creek. Not too shabby:

We'd taken our time with our morning hike, so our third redwood state-park recommendation -- Howland Hill Road, the little dirt road through Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park -- had to wait for our return trip, since we were expected that evening up at my aunt and uncle's place in Oregon.

It was well worth keeping that dirt road on the "to-do" list on the way back. Among the places it visits is Stout Grove, a grove of old-growth redwoods donated by the widow of a lumber baron in 1929. I'm glad she saved it for us:

Serene, beautiful, and majestic.

One of the things we didn't capture well in photos was the scale of the fallen redwoods on the forest floors. Each of these fallen giants creates a vast ecosystem of its own.

The grove includes the Stout Tree, the bulkiest known coastal redwood at 340 feet tall and 16 feet in diameter at chest height. Here I am standing next to it, on the right side of this photo. I didn't realize I was standing next to a record-holder or we might've tried to get a better picture of the whole tree ... or as much of it as I could fit in my wide-angle lens.

All I thought at the time was "Wow, what a monster! It's even bigger than Big Tree!!"

After walking around Stout Grove, it was time to get back on our little dirt road and head back out to the coast for another lunch stop at False Klamath Cove:

The lunchtime scenery? Not too shabby. Again.

Our last visit with the redwoods wasn't a walk, alas. But as we drove South along Highway 101 we took the 32-mile-long "Avenue of the Giants" scenic detour through Humboldt State Park. It was well worth the extra time.  We were too busy rubbernecking to shoot any pictures as we drove among the trees. But I did grab a photo of the park visitor center. The center is chock full of redwood history, biology, and Charles Kellogg's Travel Log, the world's first RV, which was built in 1917 by traveling naturalist Kellogg from the trunk from a fallen redwood.

Well done, California state park system. Well done.

A Few Vacation Photos from the Pacific Coast (Part 1)

Here's a bit of photographic evidence for folks that Monique and I are indeed alive and well and vacationing out here in California and Oregon:

Winetasting in the Rutherford Valley with Tim and Jennifer Kardos.

While in Berkeley we stayed in my Uncle Joe and Aunt Carol's house.  Here we see an eight-point buck dining on the apples in their yard.

My advice to this deer? Don't try that in my Dad's yard.

Sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge seen from Joe & Carol's.

Highway One, California.

Yeah, it's inevitable on the ol' Patio Boat blog these days: photos of little British cars. A Triumph club drove down the coast on Highway One as we headed North. One day, my little MGB, maybe you'll get to do this trip, too.

Watch out for that first step. It's a doosie!

Point Arena Lighthouse. Highway One, California.

Seas and seals! Point Arena Lighthouse. Highway One, California.

Thanks to Tim and Jennifer Kardos's recommendation we sought out Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California. There the beach was used for years and years as a dump. The dump was eventually cleaned up, but the glass remained. It's a pretty amazing place:

Happy Monique, surrounded by sea glass.

So, we had a clever plan to hike in Redwood National Park and visit the world's tallest trees. Only two things could possibly go wrong with the plan: bad weather or a federal government shutdown engineered by an incredibly irresponsible and delusional batch of Republican Congressmen. The weather was fine. 

Sigh.

Fortunately, we found a perfectly lovely redwood park run by the state of California:

(More tree photos coming soon. For some reason I'm having difficulty getting the vertical photos to look vertical today.)

The last photos for this batch: the Klamath River overlook just South of Crescent City, California. It was an awesome -- and extremely windy! -- view.

More coming soon!