The Long and Winding Road

Today was another travel day – the longest yet. After a Ship Ashore breakfast, we hit the road for Mendocino. The intended drive time was 4.5 hours but the trip ended up being a bit longer than that.

It was probably one of the most scenic days of travel so far…the transition from southern Oregon to the Northern California coast was nothing short of spectacular. Rivers, redwoods, coastline, fog, sun..it was a beautiful drive. And, it was a problematic drive for those of us with sensitivity to car sickness. The route to the coast from the more inland Hwy 101 was 22 miles of curves, curves and more curves. Juliette glides more like a boat on rolling seas than she does a car on those roads. We made several stops to allow for some inner stabilization – it was really unpleasant for those affected….and we made it out of there without any major incidents. On a funny note, when we were stopped on the side of the road at one point for about 15-20 minutes, since Juliette has onboard wi-fi, everyone broke out their laptops and started cruising the net. It was pretty funny to think we were in the mountains of Humboldt County, in the middle of not much at all, and everyone was online!!! There's something either very groovy or terribly wrong with this picture! We live in strange and unimaginable times....

Mendocino could not be more quaint. Our accommodations for the night were a home owned by Kate and Pat Flanagan, right on the main street only a couple of blocks from our venue, Frankie’s. We were fortunate yet again to have press coverage in both the Mendocino Beacon and the Ft. Bragg Advocate!

Frankie’s is an ice cream and pizza place built into an older home. To call it small would be an understatement. Initially it appeared that this might need to be an all acoustic gig but no….our intrepid sound engineer saw the way toward the full PA setup and miraculously, it all fit! We were fed by them a couple of their amazing pizzas (jalapeno, roasted peppers and goat cheese on one and pesto, mushroom and onion on the other…yum!) and they comp’d us our first drinks. Thanks Frankie’s!

Our vertigo victim managed to rally and the night was a fantastic couple of sets, played straight through. There was a small but highly appreciative crowd that filled the space with lots of positive energy and even some sing-along voices. We were told by the proprietors that a number of musicians had turned up to listen which was quite cool.

Among the audience was Jennie's mother in law, Judy Mayhan, a legendary song writer and recording artist from years gone by. Judy recorded two albums for Columbia records back in the day -- it was great to have her there singing along!

Frankie’s closed at 9:00, the earliest night we’ve had yet! A couple of friends of Andrea and Diane's who had flown in from Seattle to catch the show (yes, I'm not kidding) joined in on the fun and we all came back to the house and had a thoroughly satisfying couple of hours of laughing and reviewing the night. It doesn’t get any better than this.

Thanks again to SA for taking a chance on an unknown group and a big shout out to Angie with the Blushing Roulettes for her help in setting all this up.

Tomorrow, Healdsburg!