Fort Bragg - Day 2

We spent a good part of day #2 on the coast walking around the town of Mendocino, just 10 minutes south on Hwy#1. This is a similar place to what you might find on the East coast, in New England. In fact, many episodes of Murder She Wrote, staring Angela Lansbury, were filmed here. This picture is of main street as seen from the ocean bluffs, west-side of town.

The architecture looks to be what you will find in most coastal towns along the coast ... old buildings, somewhat weathered by the constant foggy mornings and windy afternoons. It has been 15 years since we last visited and many have been restored and occupied by new business; a few familiar business remained having weathered the COVID down-turn.

We hit perfect weather this week, no fog and only a slight breeze, with temps in the low to mid-60's ... A small bakery in-town offered a generous cup of black coffee plus a fresh-baked cinnamon role, of course. 

Here are a few pictures of the local buildings.

This Country Store is for sale, by the way ... check it out at Sotheby's Realty, Mendocino, CA.

Water towers and/or observation platforms seem to be the thing to have here, and there are several poking up above buildings in the community. There are several structures dating back to the late 1800's as well, nicely restored.

From the downtown, it's an easy walk to the ocean bluffs, so the next few pictures are of that hike. Interestingly, there were a two boats in the bay with divers over the side. We stopped one of the divers coming back to his car and discovered these were not fisherman or divers going for crabs or abalone ... Apparently, they are harvesting sea urchins, which have been killing the natural seaweed habitat. The divers were also replanting seaweed ... who'd thought that?

A pix of us then a few from the bluffs.

More pix from the ocean bluff ...

That hole in the cliff goes all the way through to the other side, creating a natural bridge of sorts. As you walk over the bridge, there is an opening (cave-in?) where you can see into the water, passing half-way through the tunnel. Very cool!

This "structure" appeared to be the remnants of some type of pier or stair going over the cliff sometime in the past, about to finish its journey down. Ha!

Also, some large anchor chain, maybe to tie up an old whaling ship ... or something?

Today we are going to the Botanical Gardens, two miles from camp. Then, a fish dinner at The Wharf restaurant, right on the water in the harbor ... for my birthday, which will occur on Friday. 

So, more pictures to follow tomorrow ... stay tuned!