Once we reached the coast, the views, of course, were spectacular. We pulled into a campground directly overlooking the ocean just north of Mendocino. It had a certain seediness related to the quality of the RVs overnighting there, and that didn't meet Nancy's high campground standards .
Mendocino, a mile away, overlooking a beautiful bay, has a certain magic and is a great town to walk around in. It has a lot of high end restaurants, high end shops, and high end lodging. The area is also a center for high end marijuana growing, and there's a medical marijuana clinic in Mendocino, but unfortunately it doesn't accept Medicare. We've visited Mendocino a number of times over the years and have fond memories of staying and dining in some of the charming B&Bs there, such as the MacCallum House.
We were approaching the end of our trip, and we decided to end it on a high note - which is known as the "Nancy principle" of pleasure travel - by spending a few days in Napa Valley. The nicest way to get to Napa from Mendocino is by turning off the coastal highway onto Highway 128 and following its sometimes hair-raising twists and turns through a redwood forest and beside the rolling hills and vineyards of the lovely Anderson Valley.
I turned our coach into the parking lot of the Navarro Winery, overlooking beautiful vine fields of red and gold, for a wine tasting. Nancy was concerned that there was no exit strategy for a big motorhome such as ours - that we were trapped, perhaps permanently. After a delightful tasting experience, we bought several bottles, and drove on a gravel road to the top of the hill, where the winery's trucks go, and made a U-turn, which allowed us to escape and continue making our way toward the Napa Valley.
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