Mendocino

How does one volunteer to join the Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department? My credentials: I’ve read Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and then there is this. During a celebratory mist-wrapped weekend in this 175-year old town on the Pacific West Coast, I didn’t see any fires, so I suppose I can’t say for sure whether I would have been up to the task. Mendocino is striking for two things, which do seem to suggest a professional fire brigade might be worth considering. Number 1 - every building is made almost exclusively of wood. Number 2 - there is no mains water.

Mendocino stands resolutely against the encroaching ocean. Their last line of defence is a beautiful bluff of wild flowers and sandy footpaths that separates civilisation from the icy depths. When I tell you the colours of the flowers were extraordinary, you will simply have to trust me or take the long trip yourself, such is the stroppy inflexibility of my art form. No one is tending to this nature and it is all the better for it. How could they, with no mains water there is hardly enough to go around, let alone to lavishly drench the vast expanse of California Lilac.

When presented with a conundrum like no mains water, how do you respond? In Mendocino, everyone built their own water towers, presumably at great expense. It was with a similar single-mindedness that I forced a group of weddings guests who had finished eating to relinquish their table, to allow us expectant diners to tackle our tacos effectively. The following day, I was sorry to learn it was the mother and father of the groom that I had removed. Overcome with beer fear (margarita mortification??), I barely heard the nuptials.

The heart of the Mendocino community is a contested title. One might expect it to be this wonderful post office, adorned with the town’s excellent typeset. But over our three days we came to feel that it was almost certainly the breakfast cafe/restaurant. Excellent coffee, eggs many ways and a cinnamon bun as big as my head. They told me that over the summer months, they often have to have 2 lorry loads of water delivered a week, what with the lack of mains water. Wedding guest outsiders and locals congregated here equally over the weekend, and as I looked into their faces, I saw none of the consternation I was feeling about this municipal conundrum.

A great part of Mendocino’s charm is how spooky it is. Wandering around the streets early in the morning, the silent calm is all absorbing. Everywhere you look are windswept Cypress trees, white water crashing into cliffs and the kinds of homes constructed when witches were still being hunted and mains water was a futurist pipe dream. I think if I had to be gruesomely murdered, I’d want it to be here.

We arrived in an electric vehicle, but I wanted so much to leave by boat. It was comforting to know that if the water did eventually run out, which surely it would, I would be free to flee to the beaches and sail to safety. I often find myself lamenting the fact that 90% of my holidays are now weddings, but in this instance, I was glad of a reason to come to Mendocino.