Let's Go To Mendocino!

Greetings, holidaying reader, as you find us away from Palo Alto for the first time in over 6 months. We're up here in Mendocino, on the coast about 200 miles north from the Bay Area, nipping away for a quick break over the Labour Day holiday weekend.

The road trip is, of course, something of an American trope, and unfortunately not something we have been able to do too much of. So we've been looking forward to getting away for a while, and the long weekend seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. We jumped in our trusty Toyota yesterday morning and headed up the 280, eventually crossing the water via this classic view:

Fogtown, I'm down and out on your streets

We then joined up with 101 to head North, stopping for lunch at another Bay Area staple, the legendary In 'n' Out Burger:

So the general view in our camp is that In 'n' Out do the nicest burgers, but Shake Shack do the nicest fries. Still, your mileage may vary.

On leaving 101 we were on to some pleasingly windy country roads. We started in the vineyard-heavy parts of Mendocino county, with the landscape transitioning to a coastal redwood forest about 10 miles short of the coast. Before long we hit the small town of Mendocino. It's pleasingly ramshackle here and surprisingly unspoilt, although I expect that in more normal times it's heaving here on a holiday weekend.

Excitingly, we've found out that Mendocino has some history on the telly! Bits of the town doubled as the "legendary" Cabot Cove in the cloyingly cosy 80s shenanigans "Murder She Wrote". And what should we find here but none other than Jessica Fletcher's house!

Obviously we'll be on the lookout for ageing authors, because a hasty demise is sure to follow. Enjoy the weekend folks!