FORT BRAGG - I

Most holidays in India celebrate festivals and so are synonymous to family get-togethers, celebration and the general hullabaloo and enthusiasm that is so quintessentially Indian. As immigrants living in a foreign country, holidays are best utilized, traveling. (if you ignore the rising gas prices that is).

Summer comes with its share of long weekends. We unlike others in this country are always a (?) step behind when it comes to planning trips. It is well-known that, planning in advance ensures that, you get good deals on flights, hotels, etc. But we are one of those people who are doomed to pay more while others seem to miraculously spot deals. We have discovered that procrastination comes with its share of joys. It tends to eliminate options automatically as economically nonviable. Thus, when it is time to make the decision, one is left with fewer choices and the final choice is an obvious one in most cases. As someone wise once said, 'Time is money'. By procrastinating, we like to believe that we save our most precious asset, time, and thus compensate for the extra money we pay for last minute bookings.

When we started thinking of traveling for the long weekend in May, we realized that all the cheap flights and hotel rooms were already taken. So, we decided to head to a place that was within 3-4 hr driving distance from home, and zeroed in on Mendocino. Our planning timeline automatically eliminated flight search from our task-list. However, we did need to find a place to stay. And so began the seemingly never-ending search for the same. We decided to stay in a bed-n-breakfast (BnB) kind of accommodation and grabbed the last available room at the Atrium BnB in Fort Bragg (FB). We felt there was more to do in FB than in the town of Mendocino (10 mi. south). It goes without saying that our lodging decision was aided by the fact that, the Mendocino hotels within our budget were all booked.

The BnB where we stayed

Saturday, Day 1: Rain showers and traffic delayed our journey. We took a slight detour and visited the Pt. Cabrillo light house before making it to FB. We would have liked to see the Fresnel lens there up close, but gave up on that since those tours are not scheduled regularly.

Pt. Cabrillo Lighthouse

Mary, our host at the BnB welcomed us warmly and showed us around. While we relaxed in the garden behind the house with some tea (did I mention the yummy chocolate chip cookies?), Mary offered us hotel recommendations and provided us with ample information about things to do. Later we headed out for dinner, to the highly recommended Nit’s Café which was indeed excellent. A walk after that hearty meal was much needed and we took a stroll around town.

FB is a sleepy town (wikipedia calls it a city) along the rugged coastline of Mendocino. It has a small town look about it which sometimes borders on being lackluster. I was relieved to not see any jazzy stores/malls and the lack of homogeneity that is a trademark of any US community. Our BnB housed a small DVD library. We borrowed some DVDs but soon called it a day, hoping the next day would be warm and sunny.

Nit's cafe for yumm dinner