On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
What a charming collection of photos! I assume there will be more because of the title; I surely hope so! ~WaterGirl
Steve from Mendocino
Mendocino is a town of roughly 1,000 people supplemented in the summer by easily that many tourists. Much of the tourism is driven by people from central parts of the state escaping the crushing heat. Locals complain about the cold overcast summer days, but eventually I figured out that that is a relief to people fleeing 120 degree temperatures. The tourists tend to walk down the center of commercial streets, gaping at the sights while locals try to drive to their destinations. We all breathe a sigh of relief when the tourists go home and we can just hang out.
The town is stretched out along the bluff just north of where Big River hits the ocean. Most years, some tourist will get too close to the edge of a cliff and have the ground collapse beneath them or else stand on a rock near the edge of the ocean and be swept away by a rogue wave. The coast is beautiful, but dangerous if you don’t use your head.
This picture shows the village stretched out along the bluff overlooking the bay at the mouth of Big River. It was taken a bit before 8:00 in the morning. I had my daughter in the car on her way to being dropped off at high school. Large swell, beautiful light.
The heart of the commercial district just before the start of school. My daughter was grabbing a latte and a bagel while I waited. I saw the shot and rushed to assemble my camera and tripod, then stepped into the street for the shot. A school bus drove by and provided that extra little bit of interest that made the picture.
This was taken toward the west end of the bluff looking southwest. My tripod had me pinned against a fence with a no trespassing sign, so I felt a bit uncomfortable. In my edit, I was going for the feeling of an impressionist landscape painting.
A humble (not cheap) neighborhood in the village at sunset.
Looking northeast across the property of the Art Center, past the kilns toward the high school just after the beginning of school. I enjoy the moonlight effect of the green light.
Water towers are a common feature in the village. There is no rain in Mendocino to speak of between April and November, and there is no municipal water supply. My first two and a half years were spent in the village before we moved into the hills above the fog, and the well at the house we rented produced 3/4 of a gallon a minute, so water conservation is essential. All houses and businesses have tanks or towers.
The Savings Bank of Mendocino is in what once was a Freemason hall, and the sculpture on top of the building is a remnant of those days.
Stormy day. Bright sun. Interesting colors.
Auntie Anne
I hope this is the first of a series. I’ve never been anywhere near Mendocino, but it looks charming. Love the shot of the bank!
Benw
Love the impressionist landscape. And the shots of the waves. Any surfers?
laura
I want a giant pickle jar to fill with the fog in the last photo. I love Mendocino and Fort Bragg so much – and our last trip was a year ago November. Cool foggy days, cold nights and windswept bluffs and beaches.
JanieM
I didn’t realize Mendocino was so small. Lovely pics — a lot of interesting variety. I especially like the light and the colors and the lines of the wooden fence in that third one.
This:
made me chuckle. I live in a state where the population mushrooms in the summer, and depending on where you live there are also lots of visitors in ski season and leaf peeping season. But oddly enough, the first image this brought to mind was of my very scant experience of visiting New York City, where the sidewalks were a constant mix of tourists dawdling and non-tourists trying to navigate around them without breaking stride.
Steve from Mendocino
@Benw: Yes, plenty of surfers. As a body surfer, though, the notion of dawning seal camouflage and treading water in a white shark habitat never quite got my interest up.
Yutsano
For some reason this place reminds me of Montauk. The term I would use is quaint. In the most positive sense.
Amir Khalid
It looks like a pretty town, and that photo of the shore is gorgeous. I’ve heard of Mendocino; I think I came across a song once that mentioned the name in its title. Any ideas what that song might be?
arrieve
What a wonderful set of memories these pictures evoke — I haven’t been to Mendocino in decades but I grew up in California and that coastline is etched in my bones. I so miss the ocean….
arrieve
@Amir Khalid: There was a song called “Mendocino” by the Sir Douglas Quintet in the Sixties — maybe that’s the one you’re thinking of?
Please stay here with me in Mendocino….
Steve from Mendocino
@Amir Khalid: Talk to Me of Mendocino — Kate & Anna McGarrigle; that song was a source of comfort during the three years I was in NYC.
Mary G
@Amir Khalid: Texas Tornados:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZOC3En5uUk
or Sir Douglas Quintet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFbI8uVUFP4
divF
I’ve lived in Berkeley for 50+ years, and for most of that time the California coast between Pacific Grove and Mendocino has been our go-to vacation destination pretty much exclusively. We’ve been stuck at home during COVID because rentals are hard to come by now, but just looking at these photos I can feel the tension drain from my neck and back.
Benw
@Steve from Mendocino: LOL there’s not that many Great Whites. Get a board, kook!
:)
John Revolta
@JanieM: Common problem in NYC is when tourists get to the top of a stairway, or worse, escalator, and just stop dead and stare around. Dangerous!
Steve from Mendocino
@Benw: I spent a half hour or so on a board once, stepped on the rail and caught the board between the legs. Body surfing and belly boarding were my surfing life for about 20 years, and, other than that comic foray into board surfing, I never had reason to do anything else. If I were still surfing today, it might make more sense. Back then, the boards were longer and couldn’t make the turn at places like the Wedge. These days body surfers have to compete with board surfers for waves — too frightening for this old fart.
JanieM
@John Revolta: People do that in so many situations…e.g. in airports. People come streaming along a hallway, and the first ones in line stop right in the doorway to hug the people meeting them, without giving a flying banana that they’re blocking everyone else.
What a species we are!
Gin & Tonic
@John Revolta: That was the thing my daughter hated most when she worked in Times Square. Come up from the subway and people stop and gawk.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Mendocino was founded and built by New Englanders, which explains why it is reminiscent of a New England village. Fun fact: episodes of “Murder She Wrote” were filmed there (as a stand-in for Cabot Cove). Other movies have been filmed there also.
I do not know what “Comptche” is doing at the bottom of one of the pictures, but Comptche is not on the coast; it is inland about 15 miles.
The whole coast from below Point Arena to above Fort Bragg is beautiful. The Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden, a bit north of Mendocino itself, is wonderful and well worth a visit, and includes coast access with great views
For my birthday, my husband and I usually spend a few days at a B&B just north of Mendocino (not this year, unfortunately). I go birding and shopping along with looking at the views, but every year all my husband does is sit on the front lawn and look at the ocean and read and unwind. (And go out to dinner with me at the wonderful restaurants in Mendocino).
West of the Rockies
I love Mendocino. Been going there for about 30 years. In the summer they have a music festival on the bluff. Hearing Beethoven mixed with waves under a starry canopy is… sublime.
Excellent photos, Steve.
The name of the wood sculpture on the bank is Death and the Maiden.
Steve from Mendocino
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Comptche seems to get dropped into most of my posts and I have to remove it when I submit the post. Seems I overlooked this one. Comptche’s 8 miles in if you have a helicopter, close to half hour if you’re driving. We’ll get some Comptche photos in a later post (sometime after my 10 posts of Paris).
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Steve from Mendocino: Maybe it is picking up on the Comptche-Ukiah road which has one end in the vicinity.
Amir Khalid
@Steve from Mendocino:
That must be the one. Thanks.
laura
@Amir Khalid: here you go: https://youtu.be/DIaYO3BkJzw
randy khan
Me, either.
I actually slightly know someone from there – Cheryl Rydmark, a really great jeweler – and given what she does, I always assumed that it was bigger so that she’d have a decent local market. Maybe the tourists help, although she also does the big craft shows. Given the size of the town, I bet there’s a decent chance that Steve knows her
Oops! Forgot to say I love the colors in the first and last photos, and composition in the fence photo.
Steve from Mendocino
@West of the Rockies: My wife sang in the chorus of Pagliacci during their production at the festival. My younger daughter spent so much time listening to the music being rehearsed that she would walk around the house singing pieces of the music in Italian as a 6 year old. Home schooling can have some pretty strange results.
Mike in NC
Years ago staying with my wife’s uncle in Oakland, we tried driving up to Mendocino but ran out of time and had to turn around. Also missed Bodega Bay.
Steve from Mendocino
@randy khan: I used to play tennis with Cheryl some 25 years ago. Very good player with a huge serve. Also a dedicated surfer. Tennis club shut down, I moved into the hills, and tennis ended for me. Her jewelry shop is Old Gold. Tasteful and good quality.
Benw
@Steve from Mendocino: whoops, owie. The Wedge is terrifying; anyone who gets out in the surf – body, belly, or standy – is okay by me. Thanks for the great pics
Craig
I like that town a lot. My buddy has lived outside of town, off the grid for 30 years. The climate is perfect for his gardening interests.
West of the Rockies
@Steve from Mendocino:
Nice that your daughter had that cultural experience/influence!
Flanders Other Neighbor
I’ve been living in Berkeley for about 25 years and I honestly don’t think I have ever gone this far up 1. Sea Ranch is about it.
My daughter and I just started motorcycle touring (day trips for now) and ended up yesterday in Point Reyes Station with no plan other than be out and about. Maybe a room in Mendocino on a Saturday night would make for a really nice weekend.
randy khan
@Steve from Mendocino:
Somehow that seemed likely.
Her jewelry is great. My wife loves it, although if we bought every piece of Cheryl’s that she loved we’d be broke. (I did splurge on some earrings for a big anniversary, though.)
Betsy
That’s a pretty place! But surely you don’t believe people driving cars have more of a right to mobility and the public right-of-way than pedestrians, all other things being equal! That would be such a Republican belief, full of auto-lobby bias. Streets are for everyone, and cars are sad.
Betsy
@Betsy: Moreover, cars actually block the street for other cars way worse than pedestrians do, in terms of their ridiculous size in relation to the number of people they move — plus headway requirements between cars, which increase exponentially with linear increase in speed, meaning that cars are less efficient at moving people distances of one mile than just walking.
Just so we’re clear on how sad and unsupportable car bias is.
namekarB
@Steve from Mendocino:
My wife and I park our trailer on the bluffs at Westport Union Landing State Park. We can stay 10 days before running back to Fort Bragg (Pomo RV Park) to dump the tanks, grocery shop etc, then right back up to Westport. Been doing that for many years. We normally stay 2 months twice each year
SFBayAreaGal
@Steve from Mendocino: Every year me, my sisters, brother, and their families stay in Casper. My brother-in-law cousin has a place with a view of the ocean.
I love the Mendocino area. My favorite store in Mendocino is Out of this World. I always go there and look at the different binoculars they carry.
My favorite beach is Glass Beach in Ft. Bragg.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@randy khan: Mendocino is a MAJOR tourist town (i.e. that is the economy), so even though it is small, it can support many fine restaurants (Cafe Beaujolais, etc.), art galleries, and jewelry shops.
Chris T.
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): The house in Mendocino that became the “Jessica Fletcher house” is there too, and is a tourist attraction. I walked past it but don’t remember if they had tours or anything (but I understand that, as usual, the interior is nothing like what was used in the show—same deal as with the Full House house in SF, for instance).
elizadin
My one and only Mendocino story:
When I first moved to Bavaria in 2005, one of the first fests I attended was in the town adjacent to our small village. Amidst all the beer and food in a large tent, there was a stage with a band dressed in traditional lederhosen and dirndles playing what I assumed were folk songs (all the Germans were singing along), except for their one rendition of “Mendocino.” Sung entirely in German (even accompanied by an alphorn) except for the single word “Mendocino.” Everyone sang along to it, as well.
It remains one of my favorite memories of Germany.
Steve from Mendocino
@Chris T.: The “Jessica Fletcher house” is now a B&B called the “Blair House”.
Steve from Mendocino
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): I owned Cafe Beaujolais for 6 years. Bought it from Margaret and my objective was to not screw it up. I succeeded in that the food, service, and ambiance remained as good or better, but I never made any money. (Neither did Margaret. We both made out on the real estate appreciation). Sold it to someone who cut staff, cut expensive ingredients, stripped the garden to almost nothing. He made money, but it became just another generic restaurant.
Steve from Mendocino
@SFBayAreaGal: When I first moved to Mendocino, Out of this World was a Bank of America branch. I much prefer it this way. Fascinating store and good people.
J R in WV
Reminds me of Key West in the long ago… 1971-73. There were many great restaurants, some open in Key West in the winter, and in more northern places in the summertime, like Martha’s Vineyard.
No surf, though, in Key West. Remember seeing a couple holding their boards up, standing on the beach, sadly looking at the 8″ “surf”. Only time there were ever big waves was when there was a hurricane nearby. Would love to visit such small towns on the west coast, someday. Wife and I talk about where we could go some day, after the Trump Plague is overcome.
Great photos, thanks for sharing.