Day one of what Audrey has dubbed the “man trip” – luckily the girl recognizes that sometimes the boy needs time alone to, as she calls it, “sleep in the dirt”.
After waking up at 6:30 in the Holliday family compound the Subaru and I set off in soup-like fog towards Bodega Bay. A detour at the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge resulted in some quality bird time, including an egret who was impressively unafraid. The fog finally broke around 10AM, and Bodega Bay yielded a massive number of seabirds, hawks, vultures, sea lions, and two grey whales, although (surprisingly) not a single photo. For future reference: December/January and March/April are whale migration times, and unless today was unusual they travel extremely close to shore. After some hiking and a ginormous seafood lunch the few remaining daylight hours were spent heading south through Point Reyes and along Highway One, aka the most scenic road in the USA.
The current plan is to go to Yosemite tomorrow, but given past precedent a betting man would not be unwise to take odds on that plan being derailed by an unforeseen side-trip. However, with Tioga Pass apparently still snow free the chance to see Yosemite’s high country in late December seems like an opportunity not to be missed.
