Mendocino (Eat Your Heart Out, Visit Mendocino)

Mendocino and a dose of scenic/sensational Highway I were not on my agenda. Boonville was, and maybe a stay at their hotel or straight/curving out to the coast for one night above the Nordic ocean. 

Highway 128 into, up to Boonville through wine country/continent, all the bigger shots, too expensive, opulent, just lookin' at all of them, Napa's and Sonoma's wine trains and the Castle of the Culinary Institute of America. Had an impossible to describe meal at the New York Hyde Park CIA above the Colonial Hudson River. 

But enough boasting, the wineries shrinking in number and opulence, almost always there though, wines slanting up to atop the neon green hills, strip mining of the land, all too comfort green to complain, the twisted valley oaks like Merlin composed, the new vines rough, looking like, if you'll excuse, “crucified thieves” to steal a Warren Zevon line, poppies poppin' Creamsickle orange, quiet California, some sheep, god’s Redwoods, rain, rain upon forest, moss hangin' like Quixote's goatee, the road twisting and turning, me behaving as the locals and the deliverers speed by, coming into Boonville, exactly as I remember it, compact and casual comfortable, no bull, a former trip up to thank the editors of the Anderson Valley Advertiser who publish my work. Get a rental. Get out of homeless helpless Sacramento. 

The AVA has moved, still a house, a home, a residence just off the town's American main street, the AVA HQ and office. 

Good thanks and good talk, appreciative of my work as I am of their commitment to their work. Before the sun sets, out to the coast with the sun in my face, but first, turn left for Point Arena or head straight with curving out to the coast at Little River? 

Left turn for Point Arena for just the name attracts. Should have and shouldn't have, narrow, roller coaster, lonely, 30 miles of the forest primed and spiritual, no wine, Redwoods towering, encompassing, green forested valleys, rugged, tiring, now ocean layers of fog and the coast is near. Point Arena 4 miles to the left. The left it is, Point Arena about the size of an arena, a hotel and liquor store combo with some shady characters on the sidewalk. Nice motel Willow or Pelican something for $165 and breakfast served. Too much, and still not on the coast. 

Sun going, gray sky, need a motel, now willing to go up, the scenic Highway 1 undulating, curving, Point Arena Lighthouse 2 miles in ,but night comes on, stopping at some really swanky places with SPA attached leaves me out in the dark, the big tough ocean washing up, white waves against the green cliffs, passing Mendocino, heading to more ordinary Fort Bragg with a nothing to brag about Super 8 and McDonald's dinner. 

Breakfast at McDonald’s, come on now, don't be complete with café-Mendocino just down the road. So, of course. 

I'm in love with Mendocino because of James Dean and East of Eden here, now though, rather slowly, easily I'm in love with it as itself and yet I see James Dean and Jo Van Fleet on its still then streets, turn of the Century and yet elite, tales of elite, reputation of elite, but not as I drive a few streets, the wooden white church steeple, all the worn wooden, the Cape Cod gray wooden water towers all lend to a suspended in a time of Jack London and deep sea fishing fleets, local chic galleries for sure with serious trinkets of all types with a real morning café, I can't remember the name of because it's packed with obvious home grown and international visitors. I'd seen something on Main Street next to their wild western hotel, wooden et al. 

Sure enough, above a closed shop below in this wooden building, FLOW Cafe/restaurant up two flights of almost shipboard planks and Viola! Holy bacon and eggs! Empty but for one other couple, mom and pop shop, clean, normal, windows all around, two flights up view of the vast Pacific and parts enough of the simple city. Eureka! I have found it! The best breakfast I've ever, with a young server looking like Liz Taylor meets Cher. She tells me FLOW means Food Local Organic Wholesome and she knows of Dean being here. A reward for my yes to Mendocino. 

More reward at the very local grocery store, a fella in line right out of Woodstock, Godspell meets Gypsy meets Mayan meets Mendocino, a carnival-clad gadfly of a guy maybe old enough to have been here when Dean and Co. were. I've been looking around for such a soul. He's kind of insulted that I'd place his age there but he puts me on to the Little River Inn where Dean and Julie Harris stayed during East of Eden. I'd passed it by, big and white and rambling up on its overlook. $300 a night. Right on by. 

The hotel here in town in 1878, movie saloon and gilded age interior. Could see Teddy Roosevelt checking in. Off to the Little River Inn. 

Big and white, lengthy, could be Vancouver or any resort above any New England lake, or one of the greater lakes. Sweet young ladies at the short front desk. Sure enough, even they know that Dean and Harris stayed here. I could tell you of my James Dean connection but it would take up too much ink to do so.

So, all in all, when you hit the road, an unknown plan unfolds. The unexpected can be, should be expected.