Roaming Point Reyes

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I woke up in the tent around 7amish this morning. I tossed and turned like usual all night- that's just normal for me for backpacking. Arya slept better this trip because I gave her her own pillow (mine actually) so she wouldn't steal Chris' all night. I just bunched up our packing cubes of clothes and my puffy jacket, and bam, makeshift pillow for the night. I do better on little sleep than the other two. Arya woke up close to 8am, I got us both dressed and then headed down to the toilet with her. Coast Camp smelled like burning campfires even though no one had dared to light one. It was all the smoke seeping in from burning Napa. I wondered if we had made a big mistake coming out here, and maybe the fires were much closer than we expected. Maybe they jumped those dozens of miles to Point Reyes in a day. (They hadn't ofcourse). Chris made us two cups of coffee, started packing up and eating his breakfast of Nutrigrain bars. When I got back, I cooked Arya and I some dehydrated biscuits and gravy. I wasn't sure how good it would be so I packed a back up breakfast just in case. Turns out the biscuits and gravy were amazing! Totally buying that again. I don't mind "cooking" breakfast when we don't have a lot of miles to log.

I'm not sure why it took so long but we were finally ready to hit the trail at 10am. Arya insisted on one last go on the rope swing tree, and of course we said, yes, because we'd be making her hike for nearly 3miles back to the car. lol. Such a neat tree. Anyway, she went into cranky toddler diva mode and it took a lot of coaxing but we somehow managed to make better time getting back to the car- only 1.5hrs. I think in spite of her dawdling, she managed to keep moving for the most part. I can't even complain. I hear backpacking isn't at all normal for three year olds. The trek back to the car was pleasant, though. Not too many people on the trails, though we did pass a few hikers and two women on horseback.

We were back at our car by 11:30am and headed to Point Reyes Station for lunch. We were in the mood for deli sandwiches and found exactly what we wanted at Palace Market. We both ordered some sort of tri tip korean sandwich heated up in a panini machine. Damn, was it good. We also got pesto pasta and a beet salad on the side. We munched on our food on wooden stumps across the street next to bicyclists on a break from their ride. It was smokier in Point Reyes Station, and everywhere we went people were talking about the massive fires. We ended up listening to NPR the entire day, receiving intermittent updates and first hand accounts. My brother messaged me briefly about his deployment there, mostly aiding in supply runs and deterring looting. Goddamn, this is a really, REALLY bad fire.

After lunch, we loaded back in the car for a mini road trip to the far side of Point Reyes. While I've seen many photos, I just hadn't been there myself. Our first stop was the Cypress Tree Tunnel- a very beautiful spot but not much else going on out there except for a quick photo shoot. We continued down the road to the edge of the world it seemed. It got colder, greener and fog drifted in rivers across the road. Definitely not ideal camping like where we'd just spent the night! Cows grazed along the road. We passed by multiple farms. Finally we climbed back up onto a cliff. My hubby tends to speed, and when I saw sand in the road, and nothing but fog supposedly shrouding a sheer drop to the ocean, I started to get very anxious. Yeah, I'm the same girl that climbed up Cloud's Rest 2.5months ago, lol. I yelled at him to slow down, and he did. But also he laughed at me.

We had been told the lighthouse was closed today (Tuesday) but I was hoping we could at least walk out to it and see it. Seeing how foggy it was, I wasn't so sure we'd even be able to do that. We all bundled in our warm coats and started the 0.4mi hike up the road to the lighthouse from the parking lot. Again, ice cold cloud rivers flowing across the road- it was pretty surreal, and I don't think the photos I took quite capture that. When we made it to the stairs, we discovered they were open! Yay! 'Cause there was so much fog you couldn't see the lighthouse from the top of the stairs. We had to walk most of the way down before we could finally see it! The white and red building is very pretty, though.

After that we climbed back up the stairs, Ary still going strong despite two days of hiking and no legit naps. I had a feeling she'd pass out hard on the long drive home. We drove back to Point Reyes Station, picked up coffees and a muffin that tasted like apple pie from Toby's, and then headed home. Unfortunately it was rush hour, so it was a long, boring 3hrs in the car for me. Fantastic two day family backpacking trip, though!

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Point Reyes
Great trees.