Mendocino, Here We Are

On Saturday morning (a week ago), we woke up early, grabbed coffee from the hotel and picked up pastries from Mendocino Bakery and Cafe. I had a delicious cinnamon twist. The other option was to purchase pastries from the cafe with a plasma television fish tank, but their merchandise didn't look very fresh.

I forgot to mention that on Friday, despite the weather, we treated ourselves to some scoops at Frankie's Ice Cream Cafe, a down-home ice creamery with mouthwatering flavors.

Anyway, back to Saturday, we drove to Point Cabrillo Lighthouse, which is a few miles north of Mendocino and off the same road as the Russian Gulch State Park. It would've been nice to visit the park, but muddy trails and possible showers kept us away.

On the bright side, we had more time to visit the lighthouse and explore the 270-acre preserve. The Point Cabrillo Lightkeepers Association recently restored the lighthouse, which is nearly 100-years old. Currently, the three keepers' houses are undergoing restoration. The largest of the three will become a bed and breakfast.

It's a half-mile hike to the lighthouse. The peaceful walk heightened the sense of seclusion that surrounded the structures. The clouds made the view from the bluffs even more dramatic and the patches of blue sky provided sharp contrast to their billowing white and gray masses.

Since the lighthouse wasn't open yet, we drove to Fort Bragg to see what was in the town of approximately 6,000 people. It was surprising to see how commercialized it was. It had a McDonalds, Super 8, Safeway, Bank of America, Starbucks (where we stopped) and many other familiar names. Visiting Starbucks wasn't my proudest moment, but in the spirit of trying new things, I had a cup of Komodo Dragon Blend, one of the chain's recent releases.

On the way back to Mendocino, we stopped by the lighthouse one more time to take a look inside. We also explored one of the lightkeeper's houses. Once we got back, we took a stroll through Mendocino Headlands State Park, which borders the town on three sides. The land here doesn't gradually slope down to the ocean, but drops off in sheer cliffs. In certain areas, the waves have carved their way through the soil walls, creating tunnels and arches. The whole scene was quite amazing. It was also intensely cold and windy.

For dinner, we bounced back to Fort Bragg to try The Restaurant. As one enters through the double doors, one door has "The Rest" and the other has "aurant" written on it. As one leaves, they read "The Rest" and "of the World". I found that amusing. The food itself was decent. I had the clam chowder and the pork medallions with asparagus and potatoes.

Afterwards, we returned to the hotel, sat by the fireplace in the lobby and eventually retired for the night. And that pretty much sums up Saturday in Mendocino.