The New Road

Mendocino

Mendocino was great. I took about 600 pictures, most of which were panoramas. In the end there were about 55 panoramas, half of which worked out. I'll put up the pictures later.

I started out on Friday night walking around, taking a few pictures, getting some dinner at the Mendo Cafe and crashing. On Saturday I woke up before sunrise and took some panos of the town as it was illuminated by the rising sun.

I went back to the B&B and had breakfast, which was excellent. She recommended that I go to the Fern Gully hike and visit the Esterlina vineyards. The hike was amazing. The vineyard was tough to find but worth the effort. I was the only visitor at the time and I had a long chat with the winemaker. He sent me on to Lazy Creek Vineyards. I didn't like their wines as much.

After that I drove up to Fort Bragg looking for the sunset, but it was covered by clouds. After the sunset I went back to Mendocino and had dinner at the Mendocino Hotel. After that I thought it was too early to crash so I went to Dick's Pub and had a few brews.

On Sunday morning I woke up very early and headed down route one towards Pt. Reyes to meet up with Joe. That drive was amazing. Around every corner was a postcard. I figured the drive would take about three hours but it took about five because of the twisty roads and the way I stopped every twenty minutes to take some pictures.

Pt. Reyes Station is so small that I was able to meet up with Joe easily. He drove us to the Pt. Reyes lighthouse. It was a little bit of a hike to get down town the lighthouse itself, but it was breathtaking. After that we hit the beach and then went back to the town with a pitstop to get some pizza.

As I got back in the car I called Lori and she said she was coming back that day, so I headed off towards home to get there ahead of her. I was pleased at how close Pt. Reyes was to Marin and Stinson Beach area. It's so beautiful and so close. I'll definitely take Megan and Lori out there to do some more exploring.