Point Reyes Station and Lighthouse

We took a ride to the coast yesterday to see the Point Reyes National Seashore. Point Reyes Station is an adorable touristy spot with some local cheese farm stores and old western style pubs and saloons. But we did not stay and walk around the town, we headed straight out Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to get to the lighthouse, even though we could see the thick layer of fog! 


But even with the fog we saw the ship wreck, and so many cows and mule deer along the roadside. Then we climbed down to the lighthouse, even though it is clearly posted to be a strenuous return climb equivalent to 30 flights of stairs!! yikes! From January through March they run shuttles to get folks out to the lighthouse to see the grey whale migration! But none to be seen today, we think we will try to get back here during our last week in Petaluma, the week of Christmas. Maybe there will be some whales then!

So, I have some fog pictures and some not too foggy pictures to share. We stopped and ate our picnic lunch at South Beach, where it is posted to be cautious due to the super dangerous surf and it is also posted as a shark area (none sited by us :()

the fog seen on the hill before we got into town

the ship wreck that seems to be most associated with this area, there have been more than 50 wrecks in this area

yes, they have grown! Eating us out of the camper!

our view for the picnic in the truck, too windy and cold to sit on the beach.

this one almost got us!

a foggy farm, so many farms on the coast here in CA! We think they must have the most peaceful cows on earth!

herds of deer! does and bucks!

It is a 0.5 mile walk to get to the dreaded stairs, this is that path!

The Stairs

And the little light house

view of one of the cliffs

Fall at the KOA

Well, we have not done anything exciting lately! A lot of our energy is going toward the big trip home next week! The kids are counting down, and to be fair I too am looking forward to getting back to New England, seeing family and friends, and our house! Even briefly!

I am surprised to say that there is a season change that is noticeable here. And after being in the valley I realize that there is green here too! The leaves are not much for color, but they have and are falling. Mornings are cool again. I could see Gavin's breath this morning when he got up! I am not ready to close all the windows yet, much less turn on the little furnace. It is nice to know that it is there though!

I have taken the camera around the KOA the last couple of days to show you some of the sights. One of the families of peacocks was roosting on a fence behind our neighbors site, so I did a little trespassing to get some nice pics! I keep telling the kids that cannot cross through sites, occupied or not! Do as I say, not as I do ...

leaves on the ground, but they do not really become colorful or vibrant before they drop

sunrise through the field across the street

still some color, but this bush is fading too

our happy little camper, we love this site because it is much quieter than some!

so, there are 2 families of peacocks and 5 of them were roosting on the fence behind our site, as they do daily at some point

the blue necks are boys, the green necks are girls.

the boys do not have their colorful tail feathers yet

the kids used "banana bikes" this weekend with a new friend, they do not stop the whole hour!

Los Angeles to visit our friends!!

We made it down to LA to visit our friend John & his family! Cliff has been friends with John and his siblings since middle school; so we knew this was a priority for us! It was a long drive and California surprised us again! We might have, finally, learned the lesson though! So, route 1 does not have much for business, even from San Fransisco to LA. I think that, the location was why we got burned again! We arrived just south of Monterey and had dinner then thought we would continue on to Big Sur and spend the night! So, in this area, Big Sur, there was primarily no vacancy OR closed at 9pm! We paid $5.99/ gallon for gas!! And finally, at the very south end at 9:55 pm found a room at Ragged Point Inn!! Yeah! 
Here we could hear the pacific and had a lovely view when we awoke. Then we were right back on the road! 

We saw a large elephant seal colony right along the road, and some kite surfers at different points on rt 1. Once we made it to the rt 101 junction we decided to leave rt 1 behind with all its twists and turns and towns and get down to business! We still hit some traffic, but arrived in San Pedro, which is John's section of LA in the late afternoon.

We were on the go the whole time, and John is an awesome tour guide! We did a self guided tour and had a drink on the Queen Mary that evening after dinner. Then the next day we went to a Marine Mammal rescue center, where we saw seals & seal lions recuperating, then the Japanese Friendship Bell given to LA on July 4, 1976 in commemoration of WW II; then we went to the Cabrillo Aquarium. And wrapped it up with his Johnny and a bike ride on the strand from Venice Beach to the Santa Monica Pier!

We had amazing Peruvian deco, a meat dish with rice and beans that Sandra made for us, and really enjoyed Dani's guitar playing and the fun childhood home videos!!
Thanks to our friends for an awesome visit!! You are all the best! 

lone kite surfer

many kite surfers

view from the Inn in the am

elephant seal colony

me & my girl on the Queen Mary, photo by John Martinez (next 3 :))

the Friendship Bell

rescue center

Venice Beach, Alexa had to show the boys how to do it!

Santa Monica Pier, and sunset below

Gavin's Take on Yosemite

This is the first campground that we stayed at in Yosemite,

it was  fun!

Half Dome is even cooler in person!!

 There is a coyote in this picture. First coyote I have ever seen  in my life!!!!

These pictures are of el capitan. We saw a few climbers.

Oh, Yosemite! surprise, surprise!

Yosemite!!

Amazing, beautiful, majestic, unbelievable!

And .... no room at the inn! What? At the end of October? No campsites available? Yes, it is true! So, the Registration folks were super helpful! We were able to secure a heated or not heated camp-tent. We had stayed in this before, in Moosehead! So, it is a tent on a platform with 3 twin beds and a double, and electricity, woo-hoo! And we were all ready to stay in our own unheated tent anyway, so great! But, also no camp stoves! You are not able to cook, anything in Yosemite!! Really? Yep! So, good thing we were in Camp Curry because they have a cafeteria style restaurant and we enjoyed a surprisingly yummy supper!

We stayed 1 night at Camp Curry and then spent all day Tuesday in the valley, checking out the scenery, of course, and the Miwok Indian Museum, replica village, and a Ranger led walk on geology. The kids became Junior Rangers, again!

We hiked along the base of El Capitan and saw some climbers with sleeping racks out already, and others pulling their gear up. We were amazed because we could not tell they were there, by the naked eye. Once we were pretty close up it seemed like they were everywhere!

Another surprise, to me, was the wildlife! I did not really expect to see any. Yosemite is all about the rocks, right? Well, as usual there was a lot of info about bear safety, even more so here! We were not allowed to leave any food in cars! To the point that you are told to remove child seats due to the crumbs! You have to sign off on this and risk a very hefty fine if a ranger finds that you have not complied! They have horrifying footage of bears peeling car doors off or climbing in and getting stuck! You get to watch that while waiting in line! But, thankfully, we did not see any bears. What we did see was a mountain goat, through the binoculars, thanks to Cliff's eagle eye! So many mule deer! And mostly bucks! As well as a coyote!

here are some of the pictures!

Half Dome headed into the park on 120 east

Curry Campground, our cabin-tent

climbing in the campground

one of the views from the campground parking lot

top right is where we spotted the mouton goat and downstream at the rivers edge there is a group of mule deer!

Miwok Indian village meeting lodge replica

half dome

there are climbers and sleeping racks in this photo of El Capitan!

Yosemite! full of surprises! Never Enough Time!

San Francisco, Again!

But, this time we enjoyed a little local flavor, as well as the tourist thing!

We drove in and went to the Exploratorium, which is a great hands on science museum! Lots of experimentation and fun to be had there!  We played with maybe half of the resources available, it takes up an entire pier! Then we walked to a deli for lunch, and reloaded the parking meter ($3/ hr!)

We met up with my cousin Courtney and her hubby Ted and walked through the Ferry Building. Fell in love with some more amazing chocolate and cheese! Then we decided to try out the Trolley! We went up into the hills and checked out the Cable Car Museum and walked back to the car through China Town.

Then we met up with my cousin in her neighborhood on Mission Street and tried some Peruvian cuisine at Limone! Fried whole chicken, rice, fried Yuca, ceviche (!), fried chicken with an amazing teriyaki like sauce, an awesome beef/steak dish, and beef empanadas!! I was super proud of the kids and me for trying lots of different, exciting things!

And while we were driving home, just in the nick of time, the San Francisco Giants won their game and made it into the World Series! Go Giants! So we got out just before the city exploded into celebration mode! phew!

Unfortunately I was too caught up in visiting and eating to take any pictures of the delicious food!


                                            the Exploratorium

 

                                             the Cable Car Museum ~ hot & stinky (oil)

Chinatown!