From Sea to Shining Seashore

Lou and me took an unexpected trip to Northern California the end of March. He was going initially for business, and since its close to where our middle daughter attends grad school, we thought we’d parlay that meeting into pleasure. We arrived on a Wednesday evening and stayed in Santa Clara, right across from Levi Stadium. While Lou attended meetings on Thursday, I enjoyed a luxuriously long workout and swim in the pool’s dedicated lap lane. Friday is when the fun started. We drove to Walnut Creek, where Lou would be in meetings until 2:00. Kendra and her boyfriend, Ross, drove down from Davis to pick me up and drive to Fairfield, where we would be staying through the weekend. Lou would drive up in the rental car after his meeting ended. Our first stop, of course, was the Jelly Belly Factory, where we did a wine and chocolate tasting and then a tour of their operations. I’m embarrassed to admit that we walked out of there with 10 pounds of Belly Flops. Those are the imperfectly shaped beans that don’t make it through the quality inspection. They’re also cheaper than the perfect ones. They taste exactly the same, but it became clear as we ate our way through the bags that some flavors are more prone to flaws than others. None of us have as yet found Kendra’s favorite: buttered popcorn.

Saturday morning we packed some snacks and water bottles, grabbed our jackets, and drove out to the Point Reyes National Seashore. It was a beautiful and clear day for nature walks, and we took full advantage of the shuttle system they have in place through the last weekend in March. It was really challenging for me to chose which photos to post here because the scenery lended itself beautifully to amazing shots.