Beautiful days in Mendocino, CA

Saturday morning the band biked into Fort Bragg to look for a show and use the library's wifi. The two miles into town made Ian dizzy. It was about time he listened to his body, and when the band couldn't get a show in Fort Bragg, and decided to go 13 more miles to Mendocino, Ian checked into a motel for some much needed bed rest and healing time. They did find a last minute show at Patterson's Pub in Mendocino. It was a great time - an intimate set by the three-piece to a very friendly crowd, all done under a stuffed moose head. Mendocino is beautiful, and Emily has spent time here in the past visiting her friend Imil from college, so it was nice to be able to be in a semi-familiar place for a while.

It was so beautiful, and sunny for the first time in a while, that the band decided to take a rest day and explore the headlands and sit on sunny rocks looking at the ocean. They also had a brilliant idea to play on the sidewalk for the visiting tourists until they had enough money to get a sauna and soak in a hot tub. Not surprisingly, they did pretty well fairly quickly and took the time for some luxury. We decided to visit Ian and see how he was doing and talk to him on camera about the trip so far. We found him at the Colombi Motel in Fort Bragg, looking better, but still feeling pretty rough. He ended up getting a fever the night before, which had broke by the time we arrived, and was trying to rehydrate and recouperate. Still determined, he decided to wait in Fort Bragg at the campsite and warm up his muscles again until Kati and Ryan's friend Sarah drive down to San Francisco on Thursday and pick him up on the way.

We drove quickly back to Mendocino to catch the band's second impromptu show at Dick's Place, a great divey bar right next to the headlands. It was a smaller, more local crowd than the night before, and the band was pretty relaxed from their saunas. It was one of the more mellow shows on the tour. The band does have a quartet of bikers traveling with them now - Olaf, Luke's brother, his friend Fen and two lovely girls they met up with on the road in Oregon, Brooke and Amber. You can get their perspective on the trip at their blog as well. They have been coming to every show for the past week and do add liveliness to even mellow shows. Brooke showed off some of her dance moves at the show at Dick's Place.

We returned to our campsite after the show at Van Damme State Park, where the friendly ranger there set us up with a site right across from the hiker/biker site and let the other bikers stay in our site and gave them their payment back. The band met some nice women at the show at Dick's Place and offered them a place to say indoors, which they readily accepted.It's been nice that although we aren't on bikes, we've met a lot of touring bicyclists through our affiliation with the band. There is such a variety of people who are tackling the coast and it's fun to have the camradarie around the campsite that you don't find in the car/RV areas.

We are heading out of Mendocino today (Monday) and aren't quite sure where everyone will end up tonight - probably somewhere between Gualala and Jenner, CA. The next few days are up in the air, they may try to play a show in Santa Rosa, and have to end up in San Francisco for a show at Mojo Bicycle Cafe on Thursday night. Stay tuned...