Romping around the California coast

Natural Beauty Alert! The central coast of California, with its cliffs, beaches, crashing waves and rolling hills, is one of my favorite places to take in nature. Last weekend, even though it was only mid-February, was the PERFECT weekend to enjoy the landscape under the shining, warm sun.

Friday night we celebrated St. Valentine's Day at the Costanoa Lodge, which is right on the coast just south of Half Moon Bay. It's a eco-swanky resort and spa without TVs in the rooms, jacuzzis and saunas around the grounds, and locally grown wild mushrooms in the risotto at the restaurant. Pictured to the right is the view from our room, with Adirondack chairs on the porch. We got massages in the afternoon when we arrived and then went to a late dinner at the Bar & Grill. We were so zenned out from our massages that dinner was an exhausting endeavor.

The next morning we woke up early and watched the sun rise. For a long time the sun rays were shining through whispy morning fog rolling around the beautiful green hills. Finally the sun popped up over the hills, flooding the valley with bright morning. Here is the view of the sun over the wood shingled roof of the lodge. Wow!

Then we ate a yummy buffet breakfast with really good sausage, pancakes, eggs with zucchini and squash, and lox and cream cheese for Boyd's famous bagel sandwiches. We sat a long time eating the good food and watching the fog move in and roll around the buildings. Next we had to get out for a walk to help that food digest. Right across Highway 1 from Costanoa (Note: the Costanoan, or Ohlone, people are Indian tribes in central coast of California) is the Ano Nuevo State Park and some beautiful sand dunes. All along the dune path we spotted cute, little dune flowers and shrubs just starting to bloom, including this pretty one:

After our walk we continued the drive up the coast, taking a detour through San Francisco to avoid the CRAZY traffic around the Mavericks big wave surf contest in Half Moon Bay that day. Our destination was Muir Woods National Monument - our mission the the National Park Passport cancellation stamp.

Let me tell you the story: Five years ago, just after college, Boyd, Kathleen, and I took an epic road trip around the western US trying to reach geomorphological nirvana (a la Professor Kurt Cuffey). On this two week trip we went to at least one National Park/Monument/Historical Site each day! And at each park we went to the visitor's center and inked up the stamp, which names the park and gives the date you were there, to add to our collection. All the stamps go in our National Park Passport book as proof of our having visited the site. That was the beginning our of goal to go to every National Park Service units and collect all 392 stamps! Whew - that's a lot! So far we've collected 46 (plus one for Muir Woods) stamps and we are slowly making it to all the California units while we are here.

That's the story and the reason we, like about a million other people, headed out to Muir Woods and took a beautiful hike through the huge redwood trees. The sun was so warm that it felt like summer and the sky was so blue with big pouffy clouds. Here is a perfect representation of the beautiful coastal hills around Marin County with big old gnarly oak trees. Aren't they pretty?

Well there, in a nutshell, was our lovely weekend enjoying the amazing vistas. Can you tell I enjoyed it? And now that I didn't get the job I applied for I'll have a lot more time for traveling, getting passport stamps, and shouting out "Natural beauty alert"!