Mendocino

This is my long-delayed entry about my Passover trip to Mendocino with G and his family last month. They rented a house near the ocean, and although it had a few weird design choices (like the hideous floral border in our room), it was pretty cool. The garage had been converted into a game room with foosball, a pool table, a ping-pong table, and even an air hockey table (which sadly did not work). It felt strange staying in a house that didn't belong to someone I know!

A couple of random highlights:

* A group of us went hiking, only to return and find the people who had stayed behind standing outside. They'd been in the game room, and when they tried to get back inside, they discovered that the door had locked behind them. Padre got out his Swiss Army knife and MacGyver'd that shit open in about five minutes.

* At one of the inns where we stopped to look around, a gorgeous tabby cat came sauntering over and started to twine figure eights around our legs. The concierge came out and told us the cat's name was Mark Anthony and he was the official greeter for the inn. My request to bring him back to our house for the duration of our stay was promptly denied.

* In Fort Bragg, we stopped for lunch, and I had a really good French dip sandwich and a delicious slice of pecan pie. There was a photo booth in the corner, and G and I climbed inside and posed. My favorite picture is the one where he leaned in and kissed my cheek just as the flash went off. Afterwards, we stopped at the grocery store, and Padre and J went inside to buy matzo for the seder. They couldn't find it, so Padre asked an employee, only to have her start rattling something off in Spanish. She thought he'd said "masa", which is a type of dough. Finally, the miscommunication was cleared up and she managed to find one lonely (but gigantic) pack of matzo. Apparently there are no Jews in the Mendocino area.

* There are plenty of Jews in MY neck of the woods, however, and a couple of weeks before we left, I was at Ralph's and found a package of masks depicting the Ten Plagues. They were so glorious in their sheer hideousness that I had to buy them. I brought them along, of course, and they were a big hit. Unfortunately, they didn't fit anyone, even the lads, so we just held the appropriate mask up while reciting the plagues. My personal favorite was the one for darkness, which was shaped like a cloud blocking out the sun. It looks like something Lady Gaga would wear to a funeral.

* Speaking of the Ten Plagues, we were reciting them and had just said "hail" when...it STARTED TO HAIL. J said, "The locusts are next! Keep the windows shut!"

* I tried mushroom ice cream, which was really bizarre. There's a mushroom in the area called the candy cap, which tastes sweet when dried. I don't like mushrooms, but that was too strange to resist, so I got a tester spoon. It wasn't bad, but certainly not something I'd want a whole bowl of, so I settled for cookies 'n' cream.

* The rental house had a guestbook on the coffee table where people could write about their trip: what they did, what they'd recommend to others, compliments/complaints for the owners, etc. Under "What would you recommend?" one mean but funny guest wrote "New York City".

And now on to the pictures! The quality isn't that great; it was overcast the whole time we were there, which doesn't make for good photos.

---

One of the vineyards we visited. The wine tasting in Mendocino is generally free, as opposed to Napa, where it can cost $30 or more. I enjoyed the wine, but I can't say as the tour was too exciting, except for...





OMG BEBEH LAMBS. Note the black one in the middle! God, these were so cute I could barely stop myself from squealing.

The next batch of pictures are all from Pt. Cabrillo.










And this batch is from Russian Gulch, where the tide was so high that the water looked more like snow.










G decided to get a little ink while we were in Fort Bragg, and now Jesse James won't stop calling him.

---

Unrelated to the rest of this entry:

For the past couple of months, a group of Canadian geese has been hanging out at my workplace. There's a lake with a secluded strip of land up against the building, and one of the geese chose that area to make a nest. I've been watching for the last several weeks, and today I finally saw four little yellow heads peeking out from underneath her.

It was the first time I've smiled in days.