A Day On The Mendocino Coast, CA

Even though the wind changed our plans to stay on the Mendocino Coast, thankfully the upcoming 3-day weekend allowed us to make a day trip. We left sunny Santa Rosa and drove north on 101, the views changing from miles of vineyards to miles of foggy dense forest. We stayed at the Mendocino Redwoods RV Park in Willits, 30 very curvy miles west of the coastal town of Fort Bragg.

Our first stop was Point Cabrillo to see the lighthouse and keeper’s house. We also watched baby seals learning to swim here!

A few miles further south we stopped and walked around the gorgeous coastline of Mendocino Headlands State Park. Even on a cloudy day, the water was so blue and clear.

Just past the town of Mendocino, we turned around and headed back north along the coast. We wanted to see Glass Beach, a previous dumpsite that the ocean has smoothed into sea glass. All the large pieces have been collected but if you look closely, most of the course “sand” is glass.

By then it was low tide (we are now arranging our days around the tide) and time for a visit to MacKerricher State Park for tide-pooling. We saw some new things here – multicolored bat stars and a red urchin.

Our final stop of the day was for yummy seafood and beer at North Coast Brewing in Fort Bragg.

Next, we live amongst the giant Coast Redwoods!