Two hundred years ago Russian explorers and fur traders established a fort on the Sonoma Coast of California. Today it is called the Fort Ross State Historic Park and soon they will be celebrating the bicentennial of the founding of the fort. The celebration weekend is July 28th and 29th. Many activities are planned, including reenactments with people in period costumes.

Rick and I visited the park this past Saturday. You can see it was a foggy morning. We arrived right when it opened at 10 am so there were few people. It was quite crowded later in the day.

Below is the beautiful chapel.

Here you will see the posters for the Bicentennial celebration.

And here is a photo of the stockade walls.

This sign shows the Fort as it was in 1828.

And this is the Sally Forth, an opening in the stockade where defenders could "sally forth" - in otherwords,  leave the fort.

Tomorrow I will share some photos of inside the restored buildings.