Mendocino

May 22-25th - It is good to have a few days of ‘quiet time’ ahead of us …….to reflect on our visit and family and life in general….. as we start this next section of our travels. I find myself not wanting to move on, knowing that from here we will be heading further away and to more remote country as we turn north ……on to Alaska. As if to foretell this, we go from the easy cell phone and internet access in Oakland, to no phone reception or internet at our campground. Fortunately, we have a phone signal in Mendocino, but I am disappointed with not being able to have easy, long conversations when I want to. This feeling ‘out of touch’ only deepens the lonely mood that I am in……

So…..Mendocino seems like a just right town for my mood. It is a quiet, picturesque small town with white picket fences, cute old buildings, and wonderful flowers and a ‘New England’ charm. So much so, that the Television show Murder, She Wrote, which was set in Cabot Cove, Maine, was filmed here.

We spent a good bit of time just strolling the streets of Mendocino…..

These little stores all front along a boardwalk and are just across the street from the ocean……Note the water tower in the background….there were many of them in town, some turned into little studios or guest houses. It seems that Mendocino sits on an aquifer, and the residents all built water towers with windmills to pump the water up to the tower. They had running water long before they had electricity.

The gardens out in front of each little shop were amazing!

The flowers….so pretty…Spring really is the time to see this area!  It certainly helps to lighten my mood……

This statuary of “Father Time and the Maiden” sits atop what is now the bank building. It was carved by Erick Albertson for the Masonic Temple from a single piece of virgin redwood.

It depicts the “Angel of Death, the Hourglass of Transience, the Weeping Maiden, the Anointment of Her Hair, the Acacia Branch, the Sacred Urn, the Sundered Column, and the Book of Light. These are all drawn from mythology and symbolize a particular rite of passage in the Masonic Order”. That’s all I know about it…but it seems pretty somber. Maybe a fitting symbol of my mood……..