I'm back from a week of operating at preferred temperature, humidity, and location. Greg and I spent the past week in central and northern California. After a brief visit with my family in Sacramento (where Mom gave us homemade chocolate chip cookies!), we traveled through Napa Valley. We only stopped at one winery, the Niebaum-Coppola, because we wanted to see the museum - there are many Oscars there, along with Vito Corleone's desk and Kilgore's surfboard. Pretty nifty, and the grounds were lovely.

After Napa, we turned to the coast. The route took us through a redwood forest, which I hadn't seen in over 15 years. I'd forgotten how the light changes, how the canopy is so tall and thick that you enter into darkness and feel small. Then we continued on a tour (Highway 1) of small coastal towns - Ft. Bragg, Mendocino, Albion, Elk... most towns had populations less than 1000 and some were less than 100. Most were rabidly liberal, too - so refreshing! We also drove through Bodega Bay, where I don't like to get out of the car because that's where The Birds took place, and I swear that is the creepiest movie of all time! We followed Highway 1 through Point Reyes (where we stayed at an inn in the San Andreas fault), San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Big Sur, San Simeon, Cambria, and Santa Barbara. I hadn't been to Santa Cruz since I was in high school and was happy to discover that I like it even more now. What a great college town! Good bookstores, too.

Although I'd been a passenger several times, this was my first time driving along Highway 1. For those of you who are not familiar, Highway 1 is terribly curvy and narrow, especially the regions above San Francisco. Sometimes the view from my rearview mirror just showed ocean, because the curve was so precipitous that the road seems to disappear behind you. Happily, Greg says that my driving didn't scare him - yay!

Along the way, we saw hummingbirds, brown pelicans, otters, seals, elephant seals, deer, jellyfish, anemones - Greg even spied two dolphins from the car. We tromped over rocks and walked on sand and dabbled in tide pools. It was over way too soon. But at least we still have pictures and memories:

Here's a view from the inn in Albion:

Another view from the inn - so pretty!:

Here's Greg enjoying the view:

Just your typical northern California coastline:

This is an image from Muir Beach, just north of San Francisco - for portions of this drive we were in the fog. We were dripping when we got back into the car:

And here's part of the Big Sur coastline:

Must go back soon! Miss the coast already!