One Year Ago: Point Reyes National Seashore

What's happening: One year ago I had the incredible opportunity to spend a week with my aunt, uncle, and cousins out in northern California playing tourist. I started writing this blog soon after the trip ended, and as I enjoyed myself so much, I have decided to write about my trip experiences in blog form.

It was January 1, 2018. I had been having an utterly fantastic time on vacation! Just yesterday my uncle took me all over San Francisco, and today we were going just north of the Bay Area to Point Reyes National Seashore. Once again, it was going to be around a two-hour commute; and all said and done we actually drove three hours because we had to drive for an hour in the park to get to the lighthouse, where we were going.

It was roughly a 14-hour day trip to San Francisco, and I was up total for around 16-17 hours. Today, we slept in till 6am...only had to leave at 7am!!!!!! ;D It was so fun to watch the sun rise as we drove along; by this point, the commute was getting quite familiar! Though we did veer slightly to the north, as opposed to downtown SF. It was beautiful, crisp, clear...new day, new year, I couldn't imagine a better way to start 2018 off than by visiting a national park with my uncle!! As we drove along, we went from clear to fog, clear to fog, clear to fog...I honestly had no idea what to expect at the coast. Oh well, I was determined to have fun no matter what! We arrived at the visitor center parking lot a little prior to 10am, bought our bus tickets, and boarded the white beast for the ride out to the lighthouse. At least at the bay right in front of the visitor center, it was an absolutely gorgeous view.

It was amazing all the green that was there...and then PEEP!! There's the ocean!!! SO. COOL.

Above, a cool little burrowing owl. Below, a bunch of bovines. I much preferred the bird to the cowls ;)

We got out to the over look by the lighthouse, and MAN!! I could not believe my eyes. Great weather and the postcard-perfect, iconic view of the park. Waves crashing upon the shore...wow! So cool. Stuff like this just doesn't happen to me!! Hands down this was my favorite view, favorite pictures of the entire trip.

Next up was the visitor center, complete with passport stamp and cool exhibits about the ocean!

A grey whale skull.

Now to get our exercise, 300+ steps down to the lighthouse!!

So rocky!!! Definitely would not want to be down here when it was windy or bad weather...

Beautiful, though.

300 steps down, 600 on the way back up... ;)

The second stop, after the lighthouse, was a short trail to an overlook with elephant seals. There were super cool volunteers who told us all about the seals (yay from biologist me!!), complete with scopes to view the seals up close. So cool!!

Photographers from around the world come to Point Reyes to take pictures of this cypress tree tunnel. And since my uncle and I were driving right past it, of course, we had to stop and take photos too!!

We wrapped up our time at Point Reyes at the main visitor center and enjoyed the exhibits. I really liked all the info about the discovery of this area of California, and the stuffed animals they had too!!