A Birthday Outing

 

Last Monday wasn't only Martin Luther King Jr. Day but also my birthday. It was also the first dry day in a long time when even the sun made a re-appearance. You have probably heard about the horrific weather we had in California. Since the beginning of the new year we had been inundated with rain. There were several atmospheric rivers following each other, but it actually felt more like an atmospheric ocean. The rain came down in sheets, and not only for a few minutes but for hours. It was wild. We personally were doing fine and didn't even lose power, but there were people in our county who were less fortunate. We had flooding, landslides, sinkholes, fallen trees and unfortunately a few fatalities. Vineyards were submerged in water and roads were flooded so much that they had to be closed. It was worse in Central California, especially around Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. Tonight we'll have some more rain, but then we are supposed to have a dry spell at least until the middle of next week. As much as we need the rain (we're still in a drought), it would be nice if these atmospheric rivers would be spread further apart. I'm not sure how anyone can still deny climate change.

Since it was such a nice day we decided to go out to the coast. First we stopped at our favorite bakery, got several loaves of their fantastic rye bread and this Gouda flat that was going to be our snack while at the coast. It was delicious.

While waiting in line - this is a very popular bakery - I fianlly took a photo of the barn across the street; this has been on my list for a few years!

I wanted to go to Goat Rock Beach which is our "go to" beach. However, because of the damages at the coast caused by the weather and the high surf, the beach was closed. We parked on top of the cliffs and just looked over the ocean. You can see the muddy water from the Russian River spilling into the ocean.

There are many rocky formations at our coast, but Arched Rock is definitely my favorite. It almost appeared in black and white against the glare of the sun on the water.

We took the trail down to Blind Beach - it's a steep climb and at the bottom, the ladder that leads to the beach was - gone. Taken away by the waves and the remains were just useless.

Some younger folks were brave enough to climb over the rocks, but I certainly didn't feel like it. Thankfully the Geek didn't insist on going down (he probably would have done it, dare devil that he is). So we just watched the birds and the waves and then climbed back up again. It was extremely windy at the coast, so I was glad when we were back in the car.

We stopped at several other spots and then slowly made our way home along the river. While it was very high, it was by far not as bad as the flood in 2019. We passed completely flooded vineyards and downed trees and everything was wet and very muddy. 

The Geek ordered dinner from the German restaurant that we like to support. We had a lovely schnitzel and fries, it was so tasty. The schnitzel are so big that we keep half of it for the next day. 

As drinks we had freshly squeezed blood orange juice topped with bubbly from a local winery - our own way of mimosas! Of course I'm sharing this with Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date.