She Says

Had breakfast in the garden room again, yesterdays food was better.
Just before we hit the road towards Eureka, I got to talk to a local Raven. He was clicking and laughing.

Unfortunately he was too high in the tree for me to reach. As we turned to leave he laughed some more. Silly birdy.
I read just earlieer that there are no crows in Mendocino. Just ravens. No wonder I like the place!

Also I found out that he reason we have no cell signal is because the townfolk chose to pass when it was offered. Apparently they and the tourists prefer to not be constantly interuppted and leashed whilst in the town. Most of the Mendo workers live in Fort Bragg, so they have cell service there.


The drive up the coast, of course, made me sleepy. I got about a 45 min nap. Bryan and I detoured over to Victorian Ferndale, where they host a murder mystery weekend 1 or 2 times a year. I bought some candy. Big shock, eh?
There's some really lovely victorian homes there. The Gingerbread Inn looked very nice. Maybe if I ever get the time off again, we can stay there.

Back to 101, and we arrived in Eureka, which seems a bit rundown. Being too early to check in, we drove about the blocks surrounding Abigails Elegant Victorian Bed and Breakfast. Some victorians are newly restored, but a lot of places are still shabby, or near falling to pieces.

When we got back to the B&B, we were amazed with the interior. It is such a drastic change compared to the neighborhood.
The exterior is a nicely kept Victorian, but the inside is like walking into a Victorian era home!

Every nook and cranny is filled with victorian nik-naks, books, games, fabrics, statuettes...
They even have Vic era movies to show in the public room! There's a scrabble game board I've been eyeing in the front room... But hunger calls.

Old town Eureka is...mixed. Some nice shops, scary residents. People talking to lamp posts, beer drinking bums and hard used(looking) women.

We found food fairly quickly. Scallops for me, gnocchi for Bryan at Roy's(italian food).
And even though I found a nice vintage clothing store it had modern day robbery for prices. After seeing Eureka, we decided that staying in our B&B was a good idea for the rest of the night. It was a much nicer place.

We spent the evening in the common rooms exploring, reading and playing scrabble. Bryan won, of course. It's a very nice place. Its easy to forget the outside world of Eureka looks so downtrodden.

He Says

Had breakfast at the Mendocino Hotel, again. Afterwards I went to the post office to mail some post cards and Kryis found a bird up a tree. We explore the garden area of the Hotel and then hopped in the rental car and took off up the coast north towards Eureka.

I have always wanted to participate in one of the murder mystery weekends they have in Ferndale California, and as it was only a short sidetrip over to the town, we stopped off on our way up the coast.

It was a neat town-- not quite as neat as I had hoped, but it did have some neat victorians, and a neat doll house with a unique story on the main street.
I hope that Kryis and I are eventually able to come to one of their mystery weekends and stay in either the Gingerbread Mansion Inn or the Victorian Hotel.

I found it, but I don't know why. Eureka is an odd town. It seems as if the bad parts of town and the good parts of town are all thrown together in a jumble.

We got there before the check-in time, so we drove around the neighborhood marveling at how one house could look like a crack house, and the next a very excellent restored Victorian. It was amazing, and yet very frightening.

When we got back to the B&B, I was almost afraid to leave the car parked on the street. We were given a tour by our lovely and gracious innkeeper, and then we explored a little ourselves.

We asked for suggestions on where to eat, but I was deffinately skeptical and frightened. We ventured into "Old Town" Eureka in our quest to find a suitable eating establishment. It was not an easy task. The only thing of interest we found was a fountain.
Most restaurants looked like they were on their last legs. There were some we saw that were nice, and finnaly settled on an Italian restaurant. We walked quickly back to the car and drove to the B&B.

After ensuring that all of our valuables were not in the rental, we took advantage of all of the wonderful books to read, and paraphanalia to explore in the common areas.

There were no other guests around all the way until we went to bed.

Kryis and I played a game of Scrabble and read some books before retiring to our room.

This was a great town on the inside of this B&B. So much to look at all around. I would stay here again if I ever found a reason to return to Eureka.