Our Honeymoon: Day 1 - San Francisco to Point Reyes National Seashore

Lately I'm feeling uninspired about the blog. I've been a little sad because my external hard drive stopped working and it has several years worth of pictures locked on it. I've tried everything I know to do, but I'm still holding out hope. In that spirit, I decided to begin working on the honeymoon photos so I could feel better about the photos I do have left. Luckily I was able to make a book from Blurb out of the photos from our engagement trip, but now they seem to be gone. Here's a link to the book. It's similar to our Maine book. Maybe I'll get a wedding and honeymoon book made eventually. In the meantime, here's some photos from the first day of our honeymoon. There are more than 3000 pictures, so it's taken a while to edit them down.

Point Reyes National Seashore

These first photos are from the first real day we had in California. We woke up in San Francisco, crossed to Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito, and hopped on California Hwy 1 to follow it up the coast. I can't say enough how beautiful and thrilling this drive is. We stopped at Muir Beach first. There was a hill to hike for a great view of the beach and a few homes.

Muir Beach

an overlook near Muir Beach

Hwy 1 coming in to Stinson Beach

Then continued on to Stinson Beach where we stopped at the best little beach snack bar. We were stunned at how good and fresh the food was. Unfortunately it was really windy, so we couldn't hang out on the beach at all.

Stinson Beach

  Up the road a bit, we stopped to see a harbor seal pupping site along the side of Hwy 1.

Harbor Seals beside the road

Then we continued to Point Reyes National Seashore to spend the night. Before checking in, we made the long slow drive to the tip of the peninsula to see the Point Reyes Lighthouse. The scenery was amazing. Everything was wild and beautiful. And the only residents in the park are dairy farmers living on historic ranches. There were lots of cows just roaming free and looking happy, but we also saw deer, elk and elephant seals.

Point Reyes National Seashore

View of the beach from up high near the Point Reyes Lighthouse

Point Reyes Lighthouse. 308 stairs feels fine going down, but terrible coming back up.

The happy cows here are free roaming. The only residences around are diary farms.

A mule deer

A beach filled with elephant seals. Point Reyes National Seashore.

Elephant seals

Elk from afar

Drakes Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore

Our cottage for the night. so cute and right on the water.

The view out back. The water eventually went under the cottage at high tide.

And our fabulous hot tub with a view.

After getting back to the cottage, we went to dinner in town, which is home to less than 500 people. And the restaurant was A-MAZING! So fresh and yummy. It was crazy how good the food was in all these small towns. And it was so refreshing to be in the middle of nowhere to close to San Francisco.
After dinner we came back to enjoy our hot tub with a view. I wish I was back there right now......