Day 15

Tuesday - July 31

Up earlyish for our day’s jaunt to the coast. Bill and Caryn took off work. Through Santa Rosa and Sebastopol to the Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve where Annie and I saw our first redwoods. Impressed as we were, sequoias, though not as tall, are even broader around the girth. Hope to see them when we head to Yosemite. Then we found a wild blackberry patch where we feasted like a group of hungry bears. Yum.
Then over to the foggy coast where we shared our picnic lunch, purchased at an old country store, on a washed up tree trunk with four seagulls. We walked up the beach to the point where the Russian River empties into the Pacific and came across a spit of land on the other side of the river hosting a hundred or more harbor seals, along with gulls and pelicans. Then down the coast and over to Petaluma, where Bill has his office, then back to Sonoma in time to pack another picnic for this evening’s annual Sonoma Town Party. Great fun, great crowd, great food, great band. Even did a little dancing myself. Finished off the evening with ½ pints of gelato from a local shop.