HAVE A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS EVE, EVERYONE! HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL.
Day 105 – We got up around 8 a.m., cloudy & 39 degrees. We relaxed with our coffee. Can’t do much until the campers in the site across from us depart; then we move into their site so new campers can move into this one. Musical campground chairs.
No White Christmas here. We’ve never had Christmas in the RV before. It almost feels cold & damp enough to snow, but I doubt if that happens in this area of CA. I’m sure it will look magical in New York. I remember one Christmas when we had relatives visiting for Christmas and we got almost a foot of snow. We were snowed in & they had to stay longer. It was really nice. When the snow is fresh on the ground, it is pristine out. The Christmas lights were twinkling off the snow flakes as they fell. And it’s SO quiet when it snows – before the plows come out and people bring out the snow blowers. Anyway, Merry Christmas, New York!
The people in site #48 packed up and left around 11 a.m. and we moved to their site. The campsite we were in was #52, up on a hill, & we overlooked several sites below. It was easy to see when they were leaving. Once we got set up again, we made lunch & then headed south to Bolinas. Yesterday we were going to visit Bolinas after we had gotten our pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, but due to the slide on Highway 1, we were rerouted & didn’t get back to the coastal town.
Bolinas is a surfing destination & like Point Arena further north on the coast, hasn’t changed a lot with time. A row of houses sit on stilts & piers in the water – now that’s waterfront property! Above the town which consists of only a couple of streets, homes are terraced above the water with views of the Pacific Ocean and/or Bolinas Bay. But they’re charming homes that blend in with the environment, not McMansions. It was very nice. We drove all over the small town looking for the California Quail Refuge. We never did find it.
Harbor mouth, Bolinas, CA
We took a road inland north on the hill out of Bolinas and visited the Point Reyes Bird Observatory. We just missed the last trip of the day to go with the ornithologists to catch birds in a net, then watch them get banded and released. Had we known this was possible, we would’ve been there for sure. We took a trail thru the riparian woods looking for birds. Rob went farther than I did, since my knees couldn’t handle the steep trail straight down to “Fern Canyon”.
We continued on this road after our hike and found that there was beach access at the end of the road. There was a large parking lot and it was completely full. We were amazed – it’s Christmas Eve. Guess everyone loves a good beach. We drove back towards the main entrance to Point Reyes and passed a trail we’d seen before called “Five Brooks Trail”. We’d been curious before so we stopped to take a look. The trail began at a ranch where you could rent horses to take on the trail. We walked it instead and it went around a small lake which had become overgrown with plants except for an area in the middle where a group of ducks were paddling around.
Five Brooks Trail, Olema, CA
Ring-Necked Ducks and Gadwalls, Five Brooks Trail, Olema, CA
Finally we went back to the Olema Marsh Trail hoping to get more bird pictures along the Trail. It was late in the day and cloudy. It really was a good thing we didn’t see a bunch of birds like we did yesterday because the lighting would not have done the pictures justice.
On the way back to the RV, we drove through Point Reyes Station. We’ve driven through this town daily since we got here and the tiny town has always been packed with people. Almost everything was closed and the town was almost empty. It was a great opportunity to see that the town is really kind of cute and trendy.
Arriving back at the campground, we found it to be almost full. We got back to our new campsite just as it was getting dark, and were happy it wasn’t darker out because the space for us to park our car is narrow & it would’ve been difficult to park in the dark (at least until we get used to this site). It reached 55 degrees today and was cloudy. Tomorrow we’re hoping for warm enough weather, without wind, so we can go kayaking. End of Week 15, Trip #3.