Tuesday 2nd June

We left the Best Western in Fort Bragg around 9.30 and headed back south to Mendocino again, this time to walk some more around that pretty little town and to browse the shops which were closed yesterday afternoon. Despite its small size, the town's scenic location on a headland surrounded by the Pacific Ocean has made it extremely popular as an artist colony and is popular with vacationers.
We spent a couple hours there then again continued our journey southwards. We followed the beautiful Pacific coast for about 10 miles then headed inland to rejoin Hwy101, again driving through redwoods and enormous trees. To have hugged the coast all the way down to San Francisco would have been too time consuming as the road is very twisty, and we were aiming for Aptos, just south of San Francisco to stay with Dorothy’s brother and his wife, Hal and Cathy, and it was a long way to go. We, purely by chance, found a fab diner on the way - looking just like you imagine a ‘diner’ to look like.

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and headed straight out of the city in the hope of beating the rush hour traffic. I love crossing that bridge - it is so iconic and the views of the city, the ocean and Alcatraz are great. We arrived at Hal and Cathy’s around 6pm, pretty stiff and tired after being in the car for so long. After a supper of Pizza, Caesar salad and wine we were all ready for an early night.