I was told about the sea glass beach by a server in Redding as well as a few other places along the coast like Crescent City. Being that my wonderful partner loves all things beach, I thought this was a place that I could not pass up visiting. I got an early start to the day so I could get beat the heat; it was supposed to be 105 degrees in Redding today. I went down Hwy 299 toward Eureka; it was absolutely beautiful. I stopped at Nugget restaurant for breakfast in Weaverville. This place was so cute, and had so much personality to it.
Hwy 299 was very curvy. At one point I thought I had gotten my mojo back from dropping my bike… then I got on Hwy 1, I do not think I did more than 30 mph the entire way. The curves on the road were crazy and it went on for 22 miles.
For some reason my bottom ratchet strap slid off my bag twice! Luckily, I noticed it happen pretty quickly and stopped. You can imagine what would happen if the strap or any other part of it got caught in my wheel.
I found a campsite, Pomo RV, in Fort Bragg at 2:30. The best part of this place is they have a laundry facility… I set up camp and checked the facility to see if I needed to go to buy detergent. I am glad I checked because I did have to pick some up, but now I have some for the rest of the trip. I headed into town for dinner around 4:00.
It’s a smallish town on the coast, I walked around the main two block to scope out what they had. There wasn’t much open on a Sunday. I ended up passing a tattoo shop, Triangle Tattoo, on the way to the restaurant. While I was eating I looked them up and turns out it is also a tattoo museum! Of course, like the motorcycle museum, I have to stop. I go in and start looking around and Niki the tattoo artist who works there greeted me and told me where to start. While I was looking in the room Madam Chinchilla, came in looking at picture frames. I asked her a question and continued looking, we began talking, she asked if I had any tattoo right as I was pulling up my sleeve to my long sleeve t-shirt. I told her I was pretty covered and rolled up my left pant leg then told them I had a whole back piece, which Niki and Madam Chinchilla wanted to see, I obliged. When I rolled up my right pant leg Madam Chinchilla she saw the dog tag tattoo on my calf, she told me she has been documenting military tattoos and asked me if she could take a picture of mine.
Madame Chinchilla and I talked for some time one on one. I told her some stuff about the military like what the Marine blood stripe was and the leadership traits, things associated with my tattoos. Since she seemed so interested in the military, I showed her my No One Left Behind series. She was very interested in it. She showed me the pictures of her on the wall. She invited me to take any photos except a few items on the wall. She let me look at the books that she had written about tattoo and the history of it, I also learned that Sailor get twin screw tattoos on their butts as a superstation. Apparently, should they be lost at sea the twin screws will keep them afloat and save them. She pointed out several phots of men with these tattoos.
I thought with an unexpected stop like this and the unexpected find it was serendipitous, I might as well get tattooed here. I gave Niki my design I found months ago. She printed it out to size it and I go in tomorrow at noon for Madame Chinchilla to photograph my tattoos and get my new one.