Religious Experience

Day 5:

After leaving Sonoma I took Peter's recommendation and drove up through Mendocino.  The drive was windy with lots of vinyards which were constantly tugging at me to pull over for a quick tasting.  Fortunately, I was able to resist and finally made it to Mendocino.  This is a very quaint town with a street that sits directly across from some of the most gorgeous views I have ever seen. 

After have lunch at the Mendocino cafe, I decided to keep on trekking because I wanted to get closer to the Oregon border.  I went through coastal towns like Eureka, Humbolt Bay and Trinidad Bay, which is where I stopped to have dinner.  The views here were magical. 

Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain all day.  This made for slow going and a bit difficult to determine where I was going to stay because I had yet to really open the camper up in adverse conditions, much less sleep in those same conditions.

The upside to travelling in May is that all the campgrounds are nearly empty. No reservations necessary and you just cruise in, pick out your spot, pay the piper and you're good to go. 

I ultimately landed in an incredible state park called Patrick's Point State Park.  By the time I had put my camper up the rain stopped so I did what everyone does when they camp...I opened up my computer and and watched Survivor on cbs.com!  You see I have to stay current because my kids and I have a competition in which we each put in $5 and we draft competitors.  The person who selected the winner gets the $15 bucks!  So fun!  The kids had already seen the episode back in NY and were dying to tell me who got voted off, which I wouldn't allow...

...but anyways, back to my religous experience.  So I wake up in the morning for my first trail run.  It's damp and foggy, which is perfect for a run.  I head out on to this amazing trail that runs along the side of the cliffs overlooking the ocean.  Hard to really explain the view, accept to say, as I was running I saw grey whales migrating south.  AMAZING!!!  I stopped to watch for a few minutes then came across a place they call wedding rock.  It's a landing spot on the top of a rock that overshoots the hillside into the water with a small area on top where people get married.  Great view and fantastic way to start the day.