Sheilaclapkin's Blog;

This is the coveted photo you spend two days on the road hoping to capture.  When you get there, it can be so windy you have to hold on for dear life.  Or the fog can be so thick it blots out the view entirely. The day we got to the spot for this perfect photo of the lighthouse, it was 100 degrees and clear as a bell. Now just imagine triple digits next to the coast in Northern California and imagine hot, hot, hot. As you will come to see, it was a blessed day.

As you start out on your journey for the perfect Point Reyes Lighthouse photo you have to travel through Marin County, and since you must travel across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, I thought that you would like to see  perfectly fog free photos of the bridge.

On the way up we stopped in the town of Mill Valley. I loved it. We stopped in Ross, San Ansemo, Fairfax, Lagunitas, Forest Knolls, Olema, and on to Pt Reyes Station. On the way back we drove through Nicasio, Terra Linda and San Rafael. We shopped in Corte Madera and had dinner in Larkspur.

Once you make it to Pt. Reyes Station you have to decide if you are going out to the wilderness area or just stay in the town for a look around.  We had our look around and then checked into our B&B called the Lingonberry Farm, a Swedish style accommodation with pancakes topped with Lingonberry jam for breakfast. Yes, we stayed in and among the alpacas, goats, horses, sunflowers and an abundance of fruit trees. Here is a photo taken from our bedroom window, which looks out on to Tomales Bay if you have 20/20 eyesight and no astigmatism.

After breakfast we began our climb to the Point Reyes Lighthouse. We drove up through Inverness, enjoyed the early morning light on Tomales Bay and marveled how it mirrored all of the images along the way. Spectacular! We turned off of Sir Francis Drake Blvd and headed to the coast passing Drakes Bay.  Now if Sir Francis Drake hadn’t missed San Francisco Bay due to the Fog it would be called Drakes Bay, but instead due to very the very fogy conditions Drakes Bay is out in the wilderness, marked only by Ranch A, Ranch B, Ranch C, Ranch D and Ranch F. There may be more, but we did not see them.

Here is an exciting photo of the beautiful coastline as you make your way down to the Lighthouse. If you keep looking back you can see Drakes Bay separated from the coast by stretch of land that is covered with colors in the vegetation that line the surface of the land creating a beautiful patchwork quilt of nature’s art at work.

Look who I saw gazing out to sea on the way to the lighthouse.

How often do you get a chance to see a fellow like this one? I waved; I wanted him to know how happy I was to meet him and asked if he would just turn around and say hello.  So he did.

How thrilling to capture the natural habitat, the magnificent animal who roams here and the royal ocean as a majestic backdrop.

There is a parking lot to accommodate the vehicles of visitors to the lighthouse, so we parked there and walked the 1/2-mile into the area where you can take the 308 steps down to the lighthouse and 308 steps back up. Whew. The lighthouse was closed on this day and the gate leading to the steps was locked. Secretly I was thrilled to see the gate locked; the triple digit temperatures and an arduous journey worried me, but really it would have been quite an adventure to walk down to the lighthouse. Go and visit the Point Reyes Lighthouse sometime in the future and hope that the gate to the stairs is locked or unlocked according to your personal preferences.

One more view of the lighthouse and a big THANK YOU to Gerry and Michael Juarez.

Posted by Sheila Clapkin at https://sheilaclapkin345.wordpress.com