Hi everyone!

Jay & I just got back from a month’s stay at Silvestrina on the Mendocino Coast, making some improvements and enjoying the beach and all the ways the coast has really re-energized itself for visitors this year. We have notes! Like:

• The restaurant at the Sea Ranch Lodge is such a delight. We last checked it out right after they opened, and it’s so great to see it really fully in the swing of things. They’re hosting fun events during the week in particular (we think they’re booked for weddings a lot on Saturdays). We went to a lovely sunset happy hour with a DJ spinning vinyl on their patio one Thursday and also a very beautiful Sunday lunch. I think they announce most of the event type stuff (as well as closures) on their Instagram
  
• So much new great food in Point Arena! Izakaya Gama is *very* good handmade Japanese food (best miso of my life?), Bird Cafe is great as always and now open 4-5 days per week, the Good Food Club is serving delicious local fare Sun-Mon-Tue. Also some great local culinarians have re-opened the chowder house at the pier as Pier Place, which we ate at every single weekend we were at the coast (they’re open Fri-Mon). It is so good! The best fish and chips we’ve ever had in California? Dare I say? Plus we made it most Wednesdays to the weekly morning bake at Pelican Bread which is always a treat.
  
• St. Orres restaurant and bar is now open on Mondays! Which means that there’s now a table-service restaurant open every day of the week in Gualala, and that’s very nice for all of us. St. Orres is even walkable from Silvestrina/Little Dachita which can be helpful given how good their cocktails are (that gin and tonic, OMG).

Offshore, the kelp forests seem to be recovering and the tidepools at Cook’s Beach were very good for wildlife spotting. So many starfish! Teeny tiny jumping shrimp! The beach had just the right amount of driftwood, seaweed, flotsam, and jetsam to make you remember you’re in the wilds of nature, and we were able to have a few very excellent beach afternoons, digging our toes into the sand and enjoying the sun and salt. I even convinced two separate friends to run into the ocean with me! (It’s cold, it’s wild, it’s not for the faint at heart! I love it so much.) The whales visited as well, pretty much every time the water was still. And the sheep are back! They’re looking super dreamy on the pasture across the street – they usually stay through Spring. 

As for the property itself, we added nice TVs to the bedrooms at Silvestrina in recognition of sporty season and also set up the upstairs office with a sleeper bed for an optional 5th adult to stay.

Now’s a great time to book for the holiday season, we are still wide open from Thanksgiving through New Year’s in Gualala. (And also the last weekend in October). I cannot overstate how lovely it is to be in Gualala during the holidays. Silvestrina has a wonderful kitchen stocked with cooking gear! Also we got a cancellation in Tucson for a high-season booking so the last part of February is available again, which is rare. If you live somewhere cold or even if you don’t, I will just say that the winter desert sun is a really magical thing.