Lots of photos for this blog - Enjoy!
After our weekend in San Fran, we rented a car and set out for 4 days at the coast. We stopped for requisite photos at the Golden Gate Bridge (better pics coming from the end of the trip taken from up high on that bluff off to the right...)
It was breezy and surprisingly warm for most of the trip - highs in the 60's and even 70's, sunny most days.
Addy was a little freaked out by the height... quite frankly, I am too when I stop to think about all the stories of people, ahem, jumping off... Uggghhhh...
Great views back toward the city.
We stopped at Whole Foods for provisions (no grocery stores - or really any stores - in Dillon Beach) and then headed toward the coast on Highway 1. We visited Muir Woods park for a walk and picnic lunch. We all enjoyed the fresh cool air and really really tall redwoods. I'm sure this was the tallest tree Adelyn has ever seen!
Beautiful forest... you can't find this in Dallas!
With a little imagination, I kind of see a large four-legged animal!
Inside a redwood...
Cool branches...
Holton was needing a nap and being fussy, but I think by this point he had finally fallen asleep!
A big rock!
And a big tree - I don't think she really understood what it was!
Pondering life...
Our first views of Dillon Beach - a residential community with mostly retirees and vacation homes and really no business/commercial buildings except the post office. It was a beautiful (winding) drive up Highway 1 past Point Reyes National Seashore (pics coming from later in the week) to get there. We visited Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station and picked up some yummy yummy cheese for the week (see pic below).
You are looking West at the Pacific Ocean, and the land on the horizon is actually the Northern tip of Point Reyes peninsula.
I was so eager to just see and smell and feel the water - we visited the beach in the early evening after we rolled into town.
Beautiful wide and long sandy beach with hardly anyone there! And Holton's first time to see the ocean!
Addy feeling sand on her feet... hard to believe the last time she was at the beach in NC, she wasn't even walking yet and wanted nothing to do with crawling in the sand!
The water was cold!!!
Heading back to "our" home away from home...
Playing on the deck - Addy just relished being outside! She loved to take her Hotwheels and roll them on the wood bench.
On Tuesday, we got to do some (adult) wine-tasting! Brian made a reservation for a newer (and new to us) tour and tasting at a winery called Littorai (
www.littorai.com) to taste some awesome coastal pinots and chardonnays at these organic, biodynamically farmed vineyards.
Here we are visiting the resident colony of geese and ducks...
who it turned out were not that friendly and liked to chase children!
Beautiful vineyard views...
and beautiful gardens to grow carefully chosen plants/flowers used in their vineyard soils.
Love these photos of Adelyn!
Holton taking it all in!
At this point, I think we had stopped for a nursing break, and Addy was so sweet to entertain herself by playing with her cars.
Amazingly, I don't have anymore pics from our wine tasting day (and No, it is not because we had too much wine!) - we had a wonderful lunch in Sebastapol at a place recommended by a woman from Littorai called Peter Lowell's (
www.peterlowells.com), which I highly recommend if you ever happen to be the area.... small place with wonderful locally grown and sustainable food (why can't we have more of these kinds of places in DFW???), and then we visited Deloach vineyards and Sunce Winery (
www.suncewinery.com). Sunce was a standout - small, really friendly (as in, they gave Addy unopened toys that the winemaker had for a toy drive - a play-dough set and a set of tickle-me-Elmo puppet hands, they treated us to a straight from the barrel recently barreled wine tasting, the winemaker's daughter played with Addy and gave us fresh figs from their orchard - unbelievably hospitable and friendly!) and they had wonderful wines. Brian and I were talking today about how on every CA trip, we always ending up happening upon an unplanned winery that we end up loving. It is those special memories that make the wine special!
Anyway, I cannot believe I didn't get any pictures at Sunce (pronounced Soon-say, means "sun" in Croatian), but alas...
We found this city park in Tomales, which is the nearest "town" (teeny tiny rural farming community) to Dillon Beach. After being carted around wineries all day, Addy deserved a little play time - and oh, that girl loves to swing and slide! She did have fun that day "learning to make wine" - she now knows it starts with grapes, and she even got to see grapes growing on the vines - how cool is that for a 2 year old!
Lovin' on Holton...
In our house, the upstairs was a master suite/loft and had this huge clawfoot tub. The kids were too cute sharing a bath!
Here is the fog one morning - it rolls in between Point Reyes and the coast, and that day, it rolled out just as quickly. We took wonderful walks in the cool sea air each morning.
Here is our loot from Cowgirl Creamery - Point Reyes blue, triple cream, wagonwheel, and goat... yum!!! With fresh bakery multigrain bread, apples, salame, grapes, etc...
Ahhh, I could just drink in this view. For me, this coast is so inspiring and rejuvenating!
Congrats on making it to the end of all these pictures!
Holton's 9 month birthday photos are up in the next post!
