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Mendocino in the Fall

/ Bulldog Travels / 63 Comments

Fall in Mendocino means mushrooms.  Mendocino is surrounded by ocean, redwoods, and hills therefore the fall colors do not blaze as brightly here as they do on the drive through the wine country to get there from Sacramento.

Mushroom hunting

My husband and I dream of owning property here one day.  But, in the meantime it really does not get any better than camping at MacKerricher State Park.  It is $35 per night and one is surrounded by Redwoods, ocean, Cleone Lake, mushrooms, curious seals, deer, wine cork stealing bunnies, and even a Giant Whale Skeleton on display for kids.

 

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She is smart enough to sniff and walk away!

Looking for seals or wayward sailors

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After realizing she looks a lot like a seal with legs

MacKerricher is my favorite campsite in California located in one of the prettiest areas of California.  MacKerricher sits just north of Fort Bragg.  Fort Bragg is a tough old logging town which is finding its footing with breweries, shops, and tourism.  Fort Bragg has newly renovated its famed Glass Beach formed from years of waves crashing against an old garbage site.  My favorite place to visit in Fort Bragg is the Mendocino Botanical Gardens.  It is and will remain my happy place.

Just a hop, skip, and a jump down the road is the village of Mendocino.  This iconic village is where Eric and I got married five years ago!  (Happy Anniversary to us!)  We relived the big day by having dinner at our favorite restaurant 955 Ukiah Street Restaurant.  The next day we picked up a baguette from Cafe Beaujolais and picnicked on the ocean.

Just north of MacKericher is a beach near Pacific Star Winery where the tide pooling is stellar.  A nice little blue grab game out to assert his domain.

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Mr. Blue Crab

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Not that you can tell with the iPhone but those are seals out there lounging in the sunshine

 

 

The guy who showed me what fun tidepooling can be

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Low tide allows for shenanigans like this

The amazing part about the Pacific Ocean is that we left weather in the 40’s and found clear weather in the 60’s on the ocean.  The weather is typically the opposite of what is happening in the Sacramento Valley.

Happy Fall everyone. I am trying to hang on to the last bit of it before winter takes hold.  Is it cold and wintery where you are already?

Remnants of an old dock at MacKerricher

For further Mendocino and Mushroom adventures click here.

Mendocino Mushroom Festival – Day one

/ Bulldog Travels / 2 Comments

It’s no secret Mendocino is special to me.  Eric and I took our first real camping trip to MacKericher State Park, my favorite place to camp in all of California.  And he and I got married in Mendocino.  Mendocino is also home to the best baguette in California at Cafe Beaujolais! 🙂 We go back any chance we get probably camping there at least twice per year.  This year we decided to celebrate our anniversary attending a festival I have always wanted to visit…the Mushroom Festival.

We arrived on a friday and set up camp.  If you have never been to MacKericher you have been missing out.  I will surely blog all about it another day.  But, one of the awesome things about this coastal campground is its forest.  And in November this forest comes alive with mushrooms.  The mushrooms make the coast and the forests mystical and interesting.  And while I might lament the lack of fall colors for only a second they are totally crowded out by fall mushrooms.  We even had multiple mushrooms right in our campsite.

Before going anywhere for the festival we embarked, with Amelia in tow, through a large grove of forest that is parallel to the ocean.  The mushrooms were overwhelming and plentiful.  And since it is a state park no one was able to pick them.  There were tiny delicate mushrooms, large red dangerous mushrooms, mushrooms with personality, mushrooms that looked like they could kill you, blankets of mushrooms, mushrooms that could win the prize for largest mushrooms, mushrooms that could take the prize for smallest mushroom, mushrooms that looked like candy, and mushrooms that looked like they were freaks of nature.  Anything you want, this forest did not disappoint.  At this point, we were totally uneducated on what any of the mushrooms were called and if any of them were safe to eat.  

Stand by for part two of the Mushroom festival to come soon…