1st Trip of the New Year!

The new year arrived after a not so fun Holiday Season. The holidays brought with it a sick dog, a couple colds and lots of stress. Over the Christmas break we found out Atilla has a heart problem and we have been nursing him ever since. We were desperately in the need of a short vacation and our dog sitter was nice enough to attend to Atilla.

Last weekend we finally made it away on a short getaway and we headed north to the coast this trip. We stayed inland at Rohnert Park, CA which is a small college town and used that as our base for trips to the coast 30 miles away.

After checking in at our hotel we headed to the coast, drove by Bodega Bay (famous for Hitchcocks "The Birds") and enjoyed the view along the coast. Just north of Bodega Bay we stopped and viewed the ocean from one of the many turn outs and grabbed this photo of the coast.

A little farther north and Chris caught one of the actors from the movie practicing his moves.

The weather was overcast with a few sprinkles but winter is California is nothing compared to other parts of the country.
As you proceed north along the coast we crossed the Russian River where it dumps into the Pacific. Easy to imagine this peaceful looking spot is where some species of salmon spawn each year.

We continued along the coast to Timber Cove which is a popular place for scuba divers, stopped had a warm drink then decided to return to our hotel for the night.

On our trip back down the coast to the south we had what a person could call a "spectacular" sunset. We managed to grab a dozen fantastic photos before the sun dipped behind the horizon....here is one of our favorites.

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On Sunday we visited Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve just north of Guerneville, CA located along the sometimes scenic Russian River. What I mean by scenic? In so many places the river is a scenic wide river passing amongst the trees and in other places, the shoreline is lined in trash.. very sad.

This photo was taken inside the park among the redwood trees.
It was a great crisp 46 degree morning with few people, clean air and an almost secluded feeling. Unfortunately we were cold.......... so our visit was rather short.

We left the reserve and headed back towards the coast again, towards Jenner and back north along the coast.

The weather was much nicer but not gorgeous so we took a few photos but not a lots. One of the scenic shots from the day. We then enjoyed our trip home.......... end of the journey.