Mendocino (West Coast Van Trip – Post 7)

Brrrrrrr!!!! It’s so cold, it’s shocking. Highs had been in the 100’s for it seems like months now in Tucson, as well as our whole trip so far. Record highs over 100° in Boise, suffocatingly hot and smoky in Oregon, searing hot even in the mountains, and suddenly a high of 55° with damp wind and fog.

Shortly after arriving we ate an early dinner in Mendocino, outside at a restaurant patio – where they had two different kinds of gas and electric heaters set up at every table. And we needed them! It seemed crazy to be heating the great outdoors while the rest of the country sweltered in wildfire smoke. But we were all out there in our coats, shivering.

The coast is so crowded right now it’s insane. There’s not a single hotel room, RV spot or campsite to be had anywhere up and down the entire coastline. The restaurants are so crowded and understaffed, most are refusing to offer take-out because they can’t keep up with demand. They all just have lines out the door of people hoping for a table.

We are luxuriating in a gorgeous hotel room, which we doubly appreciate after camping for the past week. I reserved it months ago, and couldn’t remember the exact details. So when we arrived we were surprised and impressed with how nice it is – for an affordable price too!

It has a large window view from the bed, a small sitting room, and a sliding glass door off the sitting room.

It doesn’t have a full kitchen, unfortunately, but it does have a small refrigerator and microwave and a good sized table.

Someone got caught watching golf 😉 He looks a little sheepish, although I honestly don’t mind when he watches sports.

We’re grateful for the gas fireplace, which seemed so crazy since 100+ degree heat had become our life these past couple of months! But we’ve been using it.

The first day was cloudy.

We went on a nice hike. John liked this tree growing from a stump.

Not everything red and shiny is poison oak. This is Oregon Grape (Mahonia, actually, it is called grape because it has little blue berries but they aren’t edible, don’t eat it.)

The next day the weather got sunny, but it was never really warm. It was beautiful though!

This is the mouth of the Noyo River in Fort Bragg. You can’t see them in the photo, but there were seals in the water.

This patio at Silver’s has a great view! We go here every time we visit Fort Bragg. Most of the food is only so-so, but John really likes the caesar salad with crab cakes and I like the coastal salad with rock cod.

Here’s a pretty little beach near Montesano.

People were building structures out of the driftwood.

It was a short beach – we couldn’t walk very far. The Mendocino region is mostly an area of cliffs and bluffs. John was eyeballing that next cove. I just knew he was thinking he could wade through that water to the next cove – it wasn’t very deep…maybe the tide was going out…

Nope, I vetoed that idea while it was still a just glimmer in his eye. We did go out in the water though – in our inflatable kayak! I’ll post about that next.

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