Happy Birthday Paul!!

Sinkyone Wilderness State Park

So we spent the last part of our trip on the coast in Sinkyone Wilderness State Park. It is really secluded -- it is about an hour to the nearest town on mostly dirt roads. But it is well worth the trip. Coastal redwood groves are scattered along the way and the final destination is one of the most peaceful, quiet (except for the ocean), beautiful places to spend time in. We were fortunate to be able to rent "the barn", rather than having to tent it. The barn came complete with a porch swing. . .which became my favorite spot to hang out in. We were visited by one of the park's elk herds the last morning that we were there.

We are at the Sacramento Airport waiting to board our plane but I wanted to post a few more pictures before we head out. These are from last Friday when we left the Russian River Valley and drove up the coast to Point Arena. Because it was raining, we decided to spend the night there instead of traveling all the way to our camping destination. I'll post some pictures of that area (maybe at the Atlanta airport) because it was so beautiful!

Cali pics

We're having a good time out here in California. We did a wine tour today -- driving through Sonoma County on two-lane backroads to all these little wineries. It's beautiful here and the wine has been very tasty! We decided to just focus on the pinot noir variety since it grows so well in this region. It also is a variety that Darcy and I have wanted to explore more. Some of the vineyards we visited have up to a seven year waiting list for certain bottlings of their pinot noir. Another serves their wine at the White House. All that to say that the wine here is very sought after and exceptionally good. Unfortunately Darcy still has a cold and can not taste or smell much of it. Talk about bad timing! We might stop at a few more wineries as we head north tomorrow. We are planning on spending the weekend up in the Sinkyone Wilderness area, though it's supposed to rain tomorrow evening so we may not camp until Saturday. We'll keep you posted.