Monday 22 May 2017

Santa Rosa, Bodega Bay and Fort Bragg


On Friday we went from Sacramento to Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa was a lovely town but not much to do for us, except that we met an Etsy customer, which was fun.

On Saturday I drove almost all day which was a bit too long, Google maps is not always the best way to plan a trip but it was beautiful.


First we went from Santa Rosa to the coast at Bodega Bay, which was beautiful, many Sea lions and Seagulls, they were actually fighting over fish.


The Sea lions were huge and the seagulls were quiet brave to fight them.


We had a long day on the road on Saturday, but is was gorgeous. For me it was the first time to see an ocean. It was very misty and mysterious. A very cool wind due to the cold Ocean waves, so very different of the hot Mediterranean sea we have.


You could hardly see the Ocean, it was all misty and hazy.


The roads were also swallowed by the mist the Ocean gives, even towns were under a blanket of mist. It gave a mysterious vibe, very beautiful.


Even though everything seems grey the flowers near the shores were colorful. Pictures don't do it all justice. The shores were high and the places I took pictures from were pretty high. The waves impressive.



 It seemed like the perfect place to shoot some horror movies, the mist created by the waves and the difference of the temperature between the water and the air, hid lots of things.


This trail was super steep, you don't see it but we were very high, hence why the ocean seems so out of focus.



We go to the sea every week at home, but I never seen such views, so very different and breath taking.




We also went through plenty of forests. The landscape changes a lot here, much more than in Europe, which makes it wonderful to drive through as you never get bored.



From time to time we passed a tiny town with a few hundred people.


We saw a Yard Sale sign pointing to the middle of nowhere and decided to follow it and see where it would lead us.


We ended up at someone's land with some stuff outside, but what caught our attention most were two female peacocks which at first seemed to be looking at the merchandise...


But turned out they were checking themselves in the mirror that was for sale at the yard sale :)
Apparently their neighbor had lots of birds which are just free, it was so funny and bizarre.




Some bays were clear of the misty waves, those reminded us of home.


 But no urchins or shells on the beach, very colorful kelp and seaweed was adorning the beaches.


We stayed at Willits last night which was through a beautiful forest road. And tonight we are staying at Fort Bragg, which is famous for its Glass beach. Not much driving today but tomorrow we will go in lands again.



Fort Bragg is famous for the amount of sea glass. It used to be a dump side but nature turned that in something beautiful (this was of course when there was no plastic so the things dumped were not so bad as they are now).


There were a lot of people, it was Sunday I guess throughout the week it wouldn't be. I picked a few sea glass pieces as a souvenir. We went to the Sea Glass museum which was more a souvenir shop than anything else, privately owned by a grumpy Captain, not much fun imho.


 The bays are just gorgeous no matter famous or not. I do prefer the not famous ones as those are quiet.



Tomorrow we'll stay at Upper Lake, we might stay a little longer there to keep it a little easy and relax a bit before our long horrible trip back home with 3 planes (yikes) and lots of luggage (more yikes).


8 comments:

  1. so beautiful!!!! thanks for sharing with us:)

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  2. Spectacular places!!Love all your photos!

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  3. I watch your photos with great pleasure.
    The ocean is beautiful especially. It is a pity that you did not manage to swim

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    1. The water is ice cold, too much water to warm up like the sea :)

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  4. Enjoy, Estella, last days, you have beautiful travel, a lot of memories will be :)

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  5. No Glass Beach photos?AriadnefromGreece!

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    1. The pictures with the 3 seagulls near the rough shore is the glass beach. There were a lot of people as it was weekend, hard to take pretty pictures :)

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  6. Beautiful views! I reminds be a little of where we live, the ocean mist, we call it "brume de mer", but it's more in the north, where it's colder, here where I live it's a little more rare, also I'm not directly on the ocean, but on a golfe, which makes all the difference.
    Anyway, gorgeous views!

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