The Fascinating Life and Times of Me

Lauren, Jody and I went to Point Reyes on Sunday. It is a National Park, so it's has to be good, right? When we got to the visitor's center is was a little rainy. I think Jody and Lauren were feeling a bit carsick, but soon we were all enjoying the exhibits.

After we wandered around the visitor's center, we went on a .5 mile hike into the past ... and into another time, to visit a Miwok village. I don't know why all the goofy pictures are of Lauren, but they are.

I knew it was going to be an awesome day when we found a banana slug crossing the trail to the Miwok village. I held the slug and named it Earl. It was slimy and didn't want to poke its eyes back out, but finally it did.
Lauren kissed Earl the Banana Slug because she is weird like that.
The Miwok village was very educational. Unfortunately this thing was locked. Jody had been inside before so she told us about it. But now I forget what she said.
We ate lunch in the car and then drove for a while toward the lighthouse. On the way we came across some cows.
Before going to the lighthouse, we went to Drake's beach, which had some pretty impressive cliffs.

Lauren built a sandcastle and I built a moat. Then I fixed the sandcastle. Jody documented the occasion on film.
We also did some rock climbing.

Lauren learned the hard was that you never turn your back on the ocean.
After we played around on the beach for a while we went to the lighthouse. It was very foggy on the peninsula. It is a pretty good hike from the parking lot to the lighthouse. Along the way we found more banana slugs. Lauren has some weird thing about kissing them.
Jody and Lauren felt the need to do some tree climbing along the way. Notice that Lauren had changed her pants after her first pair got all oceany when she turned her back on the mighty pacific.
There were a lot of stairs to get down to the lighthouse. 302 to be precise. Plus, a lot of the path was very steep but had no stairs. Going down was pretty easy.
Going up was not easy. It was quite a hike. When we finally made it to the top we were pretty tired. Later, when we talked to the guy at the gift shop he said they worried about people having emergencies on the hot days. I bet they get a lot of emergencies on those stairs.
I found this picture of the lighthouse. You couldn't really see it when we were there what with all of the fog. But we did get to hear the foghorn.
On the way back to the car, we saw some dear on the banks along the path. At one point a deer attempted to leap up the bank and tripped. It was very funny.
At this point the sun was starting to set. We drove to North Beach and walked around on the sand. It was ridiculously gorgeous out for a while, with misty air and a pink and baby blue sunset. These very pretty pictures do not do it justice.



While we were at the beach Jody hung out with some seaweed.
We also found an abalone attached to some seaweed that had somehow been opened. It was interesting but a little icky.
North Beach was a very nice way to wrap up our day at Point Reyes.
After that we had an uneventful drive home. Or maybe we got a little lost and took the long way back. Through a very winding road in pitch black and periods of dense fog. At least no one got carsick.
We all seemed to enjoy ourselves enough to want to come back again when it is a little sunnier out. A park ranger suggested March as a good month to go whale watching along the coast. I also want to come back and go on a trail ride. I think it would be very peaceful and pretty. But maybe I won't take the stairs to the lighthouse next time. And maybe when driving home I will try to do a better job following the map.