To the coast

 We left the Bohemian highway after our trip to the redwoods and headed to Bodega Bay, made famous by Alfred Hitcock's movie The Birds. So naturally we had to try out the Birds Cafe and check out their chowder and artichoke fritters.

After lunch we spent a lazy afternoon exploring Goat Rock Beach

The next day we head south on the coast to spend a few delightful sunny hours on Salmon Creek Beach.

From the beach we headed to a walk in the redwoods at Samuel P Taylor State Park where we took the Pioneer Tree Trail. 

Poison oak is plentiful in this area, and Calvin pointed out every single poison oak plant on the entire hike.

Thanks to abundant caution we made it safely off the trail with no itches.

We decided to add another day to our trip and took the ferry from Vallejo to San Francisco. The ferry ride was great, 

but the early morning haze on the bayturned out to smoke from the fires from a shift in the winds.

The Port of San Francisco was busy with tourists, so we joined the crowd and wandered around for a few hours.

Calvin even found a moment to relive his glory days on the Pampanito.

Then we drove back to Reno to the freshest air we had seen in weeks.

Guerneville

This summer we have had giant forest fires burning to the northwest of us and the southwest of us.  On the rare occasion when the wind blows from the east the smoke will clear, but many days this summer our air quality has ranged from unhealthy to dangerous.  On those days we look at the map to find a place that is smoke free and head off on an adventure.  Several times in the past we have headed to the Russian River area to get out of the smoke, so that is where we headed again this year.

The smoke was so bad that driving west from Reno on I80 you couldn't even see the Sierra foothills just a few miles away.

It was a relief to get to Guernevill where the air was clear and the river was inviting.

Our first outing was taking a canoe trip on the Russian River.  We have done this several times.  This year the water was pretty low, but still deep enough for the canoes.

It was a perfect day for the trip.  Calvin spotted some ripe blackberries and had a little snack.

We also saw some river otters, who hid from the camera, and several herons.

The next day Calvin rode his bike along the Bohemian Highway from Guerneville to Occidental, where we connected and I met him at the Landpaths Grove of Old Trees, stand of old redwoods that was preserved from the loggers. We had a short ramble...being every so careful to avoid the poison oak.

A few days at Lake Tahoe

We planned a midweek trip to Lake Tahoe in August to celebrate our 45th anniversary or just to get out of town for a few days. Lately you can almost count on smoke from a forest fire sometime during the summer.  This summer was no exception. Our trip turned out to be during the beginning days of giant forest fire just south of Lake Tahoe. Fortunately the wind was blowing in a good direction, so we usually just had hazy skies.

We stayed at the Tahoe Marina where we held our family reunion last year.  The water is significantly lower this year, so our nice shallow beach access is currently a mudflat. Peter's famly joined us for dinner our first night

The next day Calvin rode his mountain bike somewhere and I took a walk along a forest trail south, which really just followed the road south, which was not all that interesting until I came across the Chapel of the Transfiguration. We've driven past this building dozens of times and I never noticed it.

This outdoor Episcopal chapel was built in 1909 and held regular outdoor services until 2019.  It has since been sold and appear to be a very nice picnic area now.

That evening we had tickets to The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, abridged. The smoke was clear enough to allow the oudoor performance, but the bright red sunset was probably a little more interesting than this particular play.

The next morning, while Calvin rode his bike, I walked north along the Truckee River path from Tahoe City to River Ranch. We have rafted this stretch a couple of times, but the walk was really beautiful.

One of the afternoons we kayaked on the lake and spotted a bald eagle pair, but didn't have our water camera. So you'll just have to imagine them.