Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Saturday In Medocino

Today we learned why Gualala is considered to be in "the banana belt" of the North Coast. Leaving the sunny beach house after breakfast, we drove straight into a wall of fog. We could actually see it right offshore looking out the deck. Little did we know it was about 5 miles out of town...waiting to swallow us up!

It made the drive up eerily beautiful as we floated out of the fog and into the sun back and forth for nearly the whole drive. Through Anchor Bay, Point Arena, Manchester (shhh...don't tell Glenn!), Elk and then Mendocino, our destination for the day. It was a fun drive — lots of story telling and laughing.

Wandering the streets of Mendocino never disappoint and everyone stopped in the quaint shops/galleries/museums that were calling to them.











It was the community firefighters open house so the fire trucks did the rounds of the neighbourhood with all the visiting folk and locals waving from the backs of the trucks. Thankfully they set that siren off only a few times! Keir and Jenn were pleased to know they weren't the only ones that confused the siren for a run-for-your-life tsunami alarm!

We timed our picnic just right so as to soak up that warm sun.







On our way back, we ventured up the inland road alongside the Navarro River and through the Navarro Redwood State Park grove. You won't find the gargantuan Redwoods you find further north on the coast, but it is a lovely stand that gives you the sense of just how dense and rain forested it gets — and it's all just a few miles from the coast!

Our final stop for the day was at the Point Arena Lighthouse where we lucked into seeing a group of harbor seals just lounging around (lazy buggers!). By this time the fog had set back in again — we thought for the duration of the day.
















Low and behold though, not 2 miles from the beach house, if the sun didn't reappear. Shining just on our little banana house!

It's Hot Tub Time Machine!




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