Dramatic Change for Couple: From L.A. to Scenic Mendocino

(This blog is part travelogue, part advice on traveling with a dog, part discovery of what’s on the minds of Americans, Canadians and other nationalities, part commentary, and other musings.)

Dan Boyle and I are seated on a sprawling deck of the redwood house he and boyfriend Jason Ross own in the middle of a beautiful redwood forest in Mendocino, a charming village of homes that looks like it’s plucked from the coast of Maine. (Luca is contentedly resting at my feet.)

(Dan Boyle and me on his Mendocino home's wonderful redwood deck) 

Just over a year ago, he and Jason moved from L.A. to this stunningly scenic area of dense forest and rugged coastline – and it was a radical change.

(The Mendocino coast)

“We’d been coming up here for the past 10 years, like twice a year, and we loved it,” Dan says. Nevertheless, he resisted the move, knowing he’d be giving up the excitement of the big city, from films at the Arclight to nightlife and gay bars.

But with many of his friends having left L.A., and the lure of ample hiking opportunities and the chance to own property in the redwoods, he and Jason packed up their belongings, three dogs and six cats, and headed north. Way north. 528 miles north of L.A.

“We felt that if we were going to do something different, we should do something dramatically different,” Dan says.

(Dan and Jason in their lovely home in Mendocino)

Dan works as a freelancer in public relations – specifically, in media relations for healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. He is able to work remotely, but has had to deal with occasional WiFi outages at his home – if that happens, he heads to the stately and historic Mendocino Hotel, built in 1878, to have a coffee or meal and use its WiFi.

(Mendocino Hotel, built in 1878)

Although Mendocino is tiny with a population just under 900, and is certainly no L.A., Dan and Jason have found their newly adopted hometown offers lots of activities. Their neighborhood, Surfwood Estates, is a close-knit community that holds social events such as an annual picnic. A Surfwood gay couple (one in his 60s, the other 79) hosts a happy hour in their home every day!

(The charming and historic village of Mendocino)

Also, there is an active arts community, a theatre that is currently presenting “A Doll’s House Part 2” (presumably not written by Ibsen), an annual street circus, and festivals galore – Film, Music, Whale, Paul Bunyan, Mushroom (celebrating the multi-colored mushrooms that come out in the fall) – and, of course, lots of wine festivals. The Mendocino Writers Group sponsors talks by authors, and I attended a monthly storytelling night sponsored by Coastal Storytellers in which Dan read from his second novel “Housecleaning” (his first is “Huddle”). And then there are the pop-up events, including a Disco Pop-Up that both Dan and Jason said was the best disco night they’ve had – and this from a couple who used to go to disco night at Oil Can Harry’s in Studio City.

(Dan reading from his book "Housecleaning" at storytelling night, sponsored by Coastal Storytellers, at the Mendocino Community Center.)

But entertainment – in the form of colorful local characters – can also be found at the local dive bar Dick’s, where Dan and Jason spend a fair amount of time, and at the Mendocino Hotel bar. For example, there’s Father Lou, the local Catholic priest who recently retired at the age of 87 and frequently hangs out at the hotel, despite some parishioners’ complaints that he imbibes too much. Every night a homeless man peers into the window of Dick’s but never comes in, Dan tells me. And while there might not be a gay bar in town, Dan says one night at Dick’s half the crowd of 30 patrons was gay.

And the town’s Catholic church offers a Christmas Eve dinner of steak and all-you-can-drink alcoholic beverages for just $20.

Up the coast a few miles from Mendocino, is the much larger Fort Bragg, which has the area’s only movie theater and also offers a selection of restaurants, deep-sea fishing trips and more. Dan, Jason and I ate at Django’s Rough Bar in Fort Bragg’s Noyo Harbor on their recommendation – and I have to say, I had the best fish and chips I’ve ever eaten.

(Dan, me, Luca and Jason at the Django's Rough Bar in Fort Bragg)

Mendocino’s remoteness is a challenge. Most of Dan’s clients are in New York, and he has to travel about four times a year there for meetings. That means he has to drive at least three hours to get to San Francisco International Airport. (Santa Rosa Airport is about a two-hour drive, but it’s regional and offers flights only to a handful of cities.) Also, because Mendocino is not that easy to get to, particularly from Los Angeles, the couple laments they have not had many friends visit them from L.A. or elsewhere.

(Jason and Dan in their home)

All in all, the couple is happy they moved to Mendocino, though Dan still misses L.A. But with the beauty of the area and their one-acre property, the great hiking, a sense of community in a progressive town, and more to do than they thought, it’s worked out well for them.

“And when we get stressed out,” Dan says, “we go to the Headlands and watch the ocean.”

(NOTE: Dan and I were both reporters at the L.A. Daily News in the late 80s, early 90s. I think we overlapped our stints there by a few months, but we didn't know each other at the time because we were in far-flung suburban bureaus. We met later in a writer's group through ex-Daily News staffer Mike Szymanski.)