Carter took these photos of three random animals we saw during this trip, but all three of them came out really great and I wanted to post them here, even though they weren't really associated with any particular activity.
We stopped at Moonstone Beach in California to see if we could find one of the stones the beach is named for (spoiler: we didn't find one). But while we were there, we noticed a bunch of people surfing. This random dog was wandering the beach, and at some point he just attached himself to us and spent about 10 minutes or so just hanging out with us. We assume he belonged to one of the surfers, and he just hangs out until they come back in.
When we stopped to check out the redwoods, we saw this one that probably fell a long time ago - Carter wanted a photo near the broken base to give it a sense of scale.
There is a beach near Fort Bragg, California that the city used this area as a dumpsite for glass bottles, jars, and other debris from 1906 to 1967. Now all of that broken glass has turned into beautiful sea glass, and in some area of the beach that is the majority of what you see on the ground. This photo shows just a small handful grabbed randomly from the beach, and you can see all of the small bits of glass tumbled smooth by the ocean.
In Fort Bragg, California we visited the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens - which turned out to be much larger and more beautiful than we expected. We didn't get a lot of pictures, but it was pretty amazing.
We were hoping to see Bowling Ball Beach, where the beach is scattered with perfectly round rocks, that are created through a process called concretion (where layers of sedimentary rock slowly accumulate around a hard and compact central core, then erode away). To get there, you have to hike along the beach from Schooner Gulch State Beach during low tide. Unfortunately, when we got to Schooner Gulch it was high tide and we couldn't get to the spot we wanted. But we did come across this amazing rock formation that looks almost like the rib from some super-sized prehistoric monster.
In the little town of Sea Ranch, California is a non-denominational chapel that is a one-room work of art. It was built without architectural plans, and is open to the public 24-7, 365 days a year. The woodwork and stained glass work inside were amazing - I would have loved to see it built.
After driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, we drove up a mountain just north of the bridge to get a good photo of it. The road to the top was pretty wild - the road was cut directly into the side of the mountain, with a pretty precipitous drop right after the pavement ended. I was white-knuckling it the whole way up!
Shark Fin Cove is known for the enormous rock formation in the water that looks like a giant shark fin. It was a very pretty spot, and Carter and I were the only ones there.
Point Lobos is just south of Monterey, and was my favorite spot on the trip, I think. The point juts out into the ocean, and Carter and I hiked the perimeter. The trail mostly follows the cliff's edge around the point, and we lots of a little protected coves full of seals and otters - we even saw several babies of each. The water has an amazing color that only partially comes through in photos.
