Recapping 2014: Our Bay Area Vacation

Bay Bridge pano from the Oakland ferry.

Mary at the Mendocino Headlands.

In the early and mid-90’s, Mary and I started going to the Bay Area on vacations.  My interest in the area dated back a few years to when I went to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey; we made some day trips up to San Francisco and I quickly agreed it was “everybody’s second home town.”  We’d had a few friends who ended up settling there, so the area became a natural destination for us once we began to seriously think about getaways.

Picnic lunch at Roederer Estates.

Eventually, we had a great string going, using San Francisco as the base for trips down to Monterrey and Carmel, out to Yosemite, and north to Mendocino (with day trips to Napa and Sonoma thrown in, of course).  So this year, we decided on a trip to Mendocino for the third time – our last trip there was in 2002, I think – with quick visits to a few friends as time permitted.

The Glass Beach at Fort Bragg.

Looking at all the posts with the label “Vacation 2014” – I ended up posting about our activities quite a bit.  But in addition to catching up with some friends, there were some highlights, for sure:

• The picnic lunch at Roederer Estate, where we bought the champagne we enjoyed at our wedding
• Visiting the Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, just north of Mendocino
• Hikes around the headlands, especially our visit to Point Cabrillo Lighthouse (my post here)

There was a whole lot more to the Bay Area trip, such as the two excellent touring days we had in San Francisco proper, wonderful meals just about everywhere we went – and of course, all the brewery tours that coincidentally made their way into our itinerary…and those will be part of the basis for tomorrow’s post, which will focus on the brewery tours!