CALIFORNIA LOVE

Leaving SF via an icon

Once I was done and dusted from Burning Man, I decided to take a little tour up the northern Californian coast and check out the rugged Pacific views. Last time I came over for the festival, I took a short solo tour through Yosemite (which this year suffered a terrible spate of wildfires so I figured a return journey wasn't the best idea). I also wanted to check out the town of Mendocino, which had been recommended to me by a friend who proclaimed it as the town where all the 60s San Francisco hippies had gone to retire.

Sleepytown Mendocino

First things first, this is a truly sublime drive and well worth the wander. Switching between glimpses of the Pacific and Spanish moss coated coastal forests via a windy road (punctuated by the occasional purple haze wafts from marijuana fields) - if this is where all the old hippies had gone, I could see why.

Mendocino itself is a very laid back and relatively small town, with what seems like 50% of the local residences having been converted into B+B's.

I stumbled across a fantastic little community space called Roots in Mendocino. I'm not entirely sure what the setup was with the place but there seemed to be a few people living and working there, and there always seemed to be something going on (including music nights and items for sale). An older lady with an on-site pottery studio was getting rid of a lot of her pieces as she was moving to Mexico. I ended up very intelligently choosing to take a vase and a couple of pottery birds (bulky, heavy, awkwardly shaped and fragile - what a winning souvenir selection combination for the solo traveller!)