Journeys›Photograph

November Weekend in Mendocino

·California, United States·#road-trip#travel#california#autumn#coastline
Ornate white Victorian house with a wide porch and extensive garden, under a bright blue sky.

A November weekend on the coast, a long haul over from Truckee for it, and Mendocino turns out to be a town you can walk end to end before lunch. The MacCallum House with its gingerbread trim and iron cresting sits a block from its own weathered barn, and the old church on Ukiah Street is now Corners of the Mouth, a natural foods collective since 1975, rainbow painted into the steeple.

The town is odd that way — the state park doesn't sit next to it, it surrounds it. Mendocino Headlands, 2,328 acres set aside in 1974, four miles of shoreline wrapping the bluffs. We followed the trail out past the sea stacks, one big flat-topped island with a few trees clinging to it, then dropped down to the beach.

The tide was well out, so the rock shelves were exposed — red seaweed everywhere, pools standing between ridges of shell gravel. Spent longer down there than planned.

On the way back, an apple tree still hung with red fruit in the middle of November. Nobody seemed to be picking them.

Weathered wooden McCallum House Barn with a large dark window, surrounded by green plants and a picket fence, under blue sky.A red-brown building with a rainbow steeple and "Corners of the Mouth Natural Foods" sign behind a white picket fence.A sunny coastal landscape with rocky cliffs, a natural sea arch, and sparkling ocean water under a blue sky.A large rocky island covered with green vegetation rises from the ocean under a light blue sky, with a boat in the distance.A sandy beach leads to a shimmering ocean with dark, tree-covered cliffs under a cloudy sky.A rocky coastline with tide pools covered in seaweed, large rocks in the ocean, and a partly cloudy sky.A sunlit tide pool area with dark seaweed-covered rocks, clear water, and shell-covered textured ground in the foreground.A tall apple tree with numerous red apples and green-yellow leaves against a cloudy sky.

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