It was a dark and stormy day. With jazz variations on gray. Yellow wowing us with blooming mustard in green pastures and vineyards. Acacias and broom glow yellow from Anchor Bay north on the Sonoma and Mendocino coast. Whites in Calla lilies and delicate ruffled daffodils. Ocean like green jade when not roaring in white surf or disappearing in the rain.
That was only the first day.
Highway 1 on the coast of Sonoma and Mendocino counties is a slow winding affair, around mountains that slide to the ocean, down gullies populated with dense vegetations from ferns to redwoods, then climbs against rock faces and occasionally opens to vast pasture land and meadows racing straight ahead until the next set of curves.
Around Fort Ross, the Bishop Pines start dominating the landscape in what seem like gentle slopes to the east, but are really a series of uplifted plateaus. If you were a hiker, you could go up to the pigmy forest of these pines.
We chose to stop at Salt Point State Park. The Fisk Mill entrance is closed but Gerstle Cove is open on the weekends. It’s our favorite anyway.Continue reading “Trying to Walk Along a Wet and Wild Coast”
Walking in Sonoma County...mostly 
