After we let our kids in on the Disneyland surprise we told them we were going to take 4 days driving down the coast to get there. We stopped in Crescent City, CA to see the lighthouse there. It was pretty cool and fun to see the ocean again. We stopped at a cool park to play and have lunch and then continued to drive down the coast.
We drove through the Avenue of the Giants but apparently all of those pictures are on Doug's phone or our camera. It was pretty cool. We got to Ft. Bragg and tried to find Glass Beach but it was too dark by the time we got there. I forgot the sun goes down early now!! I was kind of bummed, We still had an hour to drive to get to our hotel (in hindsight I would not have booked hotels before. We would have just stayed however far we got along the way). It was very stressful driving the very windy roads of Highway 1 in the dark with little to no cell service. I was also freaking out because our hotel said they closed a half hour before we got there so I was worried we wouldn't have a place to stay. When we got there we saw they left our key under the door mat so we were in luck and I could finally breath!! The next morning we thought about going back to Ft. Bragg to find the glass beach but realized there was no way we wanted to drive that stretch of highway again. We did backtrack a little to Point Arena to see that lighthouse though and it was gorgeous.
The beaches there were quite pretty as well. We tried to find one called Bowling Ball beach. We think this was it but the tide was too high to see the "bowling balls". Look up images online if you want to see it. It looks pretty cool.
Along the way we drove through Bodega Bay where "The Birds" was filmed.
The famous Tides restaurant from the movie but it looks a lot different now.
Our next stop was Point Reyes which is a National Seashore. When we got there it was soooooo foggy!! We saw tons of wild life though. There were hawks everywhere as well as these guys. We also turned a corner and saw a huge Snowy Egret (I think) just standing out in a field. Of course I didn't' get any pictures. Just mental images. The closer we got to the shore the more I started freaking out. There were signs everywhere warning about steep rocky cliffs and the fog was seriously thick. I kept begging Doug to turn around but he wanted to see the lighthouse.
Once we got there I stayed in the car with Sophia and a sleeping Lewis while he took the other girls to find the lighthouse. They went down about 300 steps and finally found it. Doug asked the ranger here if the fog was unusual and he told him it's always this foggy. Apparently it's the foggiest part of California. Good to know!
They were troopers for doing all those steps!!
After our stop in Point Reyes we headed to San Francisco to see the bridge. Once again it was quite foggy and there was not much to see unfortunately.
It was also pretty windy!!
We drove over the bridge though since we couldn't see it.
After driving through San Francisco we went to Half Moon Bay to play on the beach. It was a little chilly but the kids still had fun.
Lewis thought it was pretty great to throw sand on me.
Sure love this boy!
What a bunch of crazies!! They did so well being cooped up in the car for so long!
Gorgeous. I loved sights like this.
After Half Moon Bay we went to check out the Pigeon Point lighthouse. It was probably my favorite lighthouse that we saw. I loved it.
This is the light that used to be in the top. Now there's a bulb the size of a fingernail that they use.
While we were there we got to see harbor seals (it's a small black dot in the middle of the picture) and dolphins swimming in the water. It was so cool!!
So far the coast did not disappoint!
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