California Part 1
It's here. The part you've all been waiting for. We have finally hit California.
After the dry but amazing day in Nevada, we were all quite antsy as we drove up, up, up through Donner Pass (ew - I was not happy about going this route) and down, down, down into California. We had almost made it to the other side of the country!! We were patient and so super excited until we got to Sacramento - and that's when we hit the traffic. Start stop. Start stop. Start stop. It took SO much longer than we had planned - but finally, we hit the county in which our campsite was. It was such a charming place, and the ocean was thinking about showing itself over the trees; we were so excited! So excited, in fact, that we didn't notice the clouds looming ever nearer and the outside thermometer slowly dropping in temperature...
In short, when we got to our campsite right on Bodega Bay, we were already cold and tired. Finding out that we would have no electricity for the three days we would stay there did not improve our mood, and neither did the bathrooms. It was cold windy, and cold. Did I mention it was cold?
We explored the beach in our bare feet, but found the water much too cold for our tastes. We contented ourselves with searching for sea shells, and we were not disappointed in that respect. However, when we got back to the camper and actually managed to warm up a bit, everybody was still grumpy and still cold. More than one in the party were adamant that we find a hotel. We decided to brave the first night, but stay in a hotel the day after that. And the day after that. Good plan? I think so.
After being woken in the night by a very profane drunk man who was yelling at someone for some reason or another, we got up in the morning still very cold and not very refreshed. Oh well. We packed up and moved out, and drove a fair way until we reached point Reyes National Seashore. Oh, that was a delightful beach! (Apparently beaches in northern California are not like what the average person thinks beaches are - the waves are somewhat big, and the coast is ALWAYS cold and cloudy. Ugh. The beaches are still fun, though! ;)
We saw a historical light house and some elephant seals that were doing nothing, and we decided to go check out our hotel. When we got there, we, um, changed our minds - it was really creepy. Fed up with creepy/weird places to stay, we booked a very expensive but nice hotel, and when we got there we were not disappointed. It was gorgeous.
The next day, we decided to go drive through wine country - located in the gorgeous Sonoma County. It was so much fun! We stopped at a few wineries, took a bunch of pictures, and generally had a blast.
There were SO many lizards!
I was able to take a lot of flower photography :)
We eventually got to the ADORABLE town of Healdsburg. It was small, but well organized and well taken care of. We ate at The Wurst restaurant - it wasn't the worst, though! It was very good, and what's even better, every part about it was 100% homemade.
Sorry for the photo dump. Doesn't that look delicious?
At the end of the day we went back to the hotel and jumped in the pool for a little while. We had so much fun in Sonoma! However, I beg with you all to pray for all of the people in this county and in Northern California; you've probably heard that there are wildfires raging all over the place up there, and so many people have died or been seriously injured; several of the wineries that we drove past have been completely burnt up. It's really hard to imagine the serene community that we just drove through 2 months ago is all on fire. So please, pray for all of those poor people!!
Did you like the pictures I was able to take? :)
