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August 13, 2002

Winter on the coast !

This day started off bright and sunny. Little did we know we were about to enter a different climate zone !

We waved goodbye to Redwood country and headed south down the 101. Along the way we paused at Eureka and greatly enjoyed a walk around the old town which is very well preserved before heading further south.

At Leggett we took highway 1 and headed east for the coast. Two big surprises were in store for us. Firstly, the map we had was too large a scale to show how tortuously winding the road was through the coastal range mountains. We had car sick passengers and a journey of twice the time we had estimated to got to the coast. The 2nd surprise was the low cloud/fog and its impact upon the temperature. As we left highway 101 it was a blazing hot August day of around 32 degrees C. The temperature dropped all the way to the coast until it was 12 degrees C as we got out of the van at an overlook for the coastline view. It was like winter in the middle of the afternoon, in August, in sunny California !

We then drove down highway 1 along the Pacific coast to Fort Bragg. I had looked forward to this drive on the coastal highway, but was deeply disappointed by it. Thinking back now, everything looked drab and run down and grey but I dont know how much of that feeling was due to the dull low hanging clouds and how much was due to the actual state of the coastal area.

Outside the southern end of Fort Bragg we checked into our Motel where we planned to stay 3 nights. The rooms we had booked had an ocean view over the motels own private beach, tennis courts and an on site restaurant. Reality took a bite out of expectations as the ocean view was just visible way over to the left from the veranda through a gap in some trees and the on site restaurant was only open at weekends (we were there midweek).

That evening we set out for Mendocino a small town recommended by the motel staff just a few miles south. By the evening the low cloud had become thick fog pushing visibility down to maybe 50 yards and the drive through this was far from relaxing. At Mendocino we found a small restaurant connected to one of the water towers the town is noted for that appears on all the photographs and post cards. We had a very good meal but the waiter when asked about the weather told us that this was normal Mendocino weather and that the previous week they had had a heat wave where it got to almost 70 degrees F (20
degrees C). That sealed it for us and we decided to move on the next day to leave winter behind and return to summer inland.

Posted by Graham on August 13, 2002 10:29 AM
Category: 2002 California / Oregon
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