Coast time

We spent the weekend on the coast. Michael's total veggie oil haul was 125 gallons plus we topped off the diesel tank with bio-diesel at Real Goods store in Hopland on the way home.

I wanted to show all my beautiful pictures but this information about the plastic is more important. Infinitely more important.

Michael and I got to the youth hostel in Pt Reyes after dark. It had been awhile since I slept in one of these hostel barracks with a room of strangers but it was uneventful, except the VV had a minor tree run-in and then was invaded by raccoons. It was good to be back on the traveling side of the San Andreas. After my trainings, Michael obtained 70 gallons of veggie oil back on the Sir Francis Drake then we walked out in the scouring winds of Limantour Beach where this strange fish was gasping up on the beach. (Called a chimera, see below.) We walked up the Sky Trail at sunset and then camped outside the park at the trailhead for the Marin Bike Path.
In the morning we rode bikes to the Samuel Taylor State Park, reading the signage about the first west coast paper mill, imagining the vision, the hard work and the destructiveness of this mid 19th century undertaking, miles from the San Francisco newspapers, way before the days of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Later we wandered up to the Russian River where we camped and visited the Goat Head rock, shown here, in the morning. The best thing was very insignificant but luscious in the doing—we napped in the warm sand with the clean just-right sun and air on us. We paddled up to the mouth where the harbor seals are pupping and lounging, beset by human tourists.
The last night before turning inland at the Navarro River was camping at the mouth, except the mouth is barred by a dense strand of sand. Still, the river, visibly disconnected from the sea still rises and falls with the tides.

Before we left I helped my co-workers celebrate the birthday of the wonderful Barb Clifford... here are Elaine, DeAnne, Patty and Barb at our lunch together. Wonderful women!