Saturday

Last Saturday I woke up at an insane hour. I'm reminded over and over again that it's criminal to get up at six am. But once again I needed to and I did. I was going for a hike with my brother and four of his friends.

We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge out of San Francisco, which was covered in fog and drove all the Way to the park that we would be hiking at. I think we started the hike around nine am. I was still a bit groggy at that time. We started out in the forest with huge pines all around us. There were also redwood trees. It was in one of the forests around that area that part of Star Wars was filmed...the part in Episode Six, towards the end, where they are in the forest with the Ewoks (small bears). Anyway, yeah...that part was filmed here with all the redwoods.

The total duration of our hike was about nine hours. We started in the forest, went out towards the sea and came back into the forest. It was so beautiful. After coming out of the forest, we came to a cliff which is shaped like a horse shoe with the most narrow part connecting to the rest of the land. In other words, it's kind of like a peninsula...it jutted out in that way. The top of the cliff, where we were standing, was probably about twenty feet from the sea below. We could see the waves hitting up against the rocks below. Far in the horizen were a few ships...probably fishing. It was so gorgous. The sea was blue and I could see the bottom where it was more shallow. The breeze was blowing and the sky was reflecting the color of the water, but also with the great sun pouring down it's rays upon the earth. I was reminded of the scene in Peter Pan when Pan goes to rescue Tigerlily near Skull Rock. There was a big rock in the sea that looked like Skull Rock.

After a quick lunch at the top of Point Reyes, we found a way down the side of the rock to get down to the beach. It was like real rock climbing and it was quite steep too. A stream was flowing past us out to the sea and it met with the sea in a small cove area. Just above the cove was a great big arch of stone. This place is rightfully named Arch Rock. I was observing the rock formations here and I find the layering most interesting. We explored this area for a while and went into a small cave. It smelled quite musty in there. I lay down on the small stones while the guys were rock climbing. Too bad we don't have beds like that. The warm pebbles molded to the shape of my body and it was most comfortable. I could have stayed there for hours but the tide was coming in and we had to move out or we would be trapped.

The rest of the hike was rather uneventful but there was a steady stream of gorgeous purple, yellow, blue and pink flowers along the way. We climbed and walked and stopped and walked and this went on and on. I was leading the way when we came to a part where there were berry bushes on both sides of us. Suddenly, right in front of me was an orange and black snake. I stopped abruptly but the next minute it was gone. I have never really liked snakes, and although I've touched one once, I wasn't looking forward to an encounter with another...especially one so brightly colored. Fortunately it felt the same way. After taking a deep breath, I continued walking. We also saw a few deer along the way.

By the time we got back to the car, we were exhausted and it was six o'clock. It was an hour drive back home and we rushed knowing that we were going to be late for dinner. Two of my friends had decided to treat us all to a six course dinner and it was sure well worth it after a ten mile hike. Dinner was so scrumptious and we topped it off with chocolate fondue at the end. Marshmellows and strawberries dipped in chocolate. There were still so many left over when we were done. It was sooo good!

I slept the best I've slept in a long time that night. I was sunburnt too though, so I had my red shoulders and rosy cheeks. I'm really looking forward to posting up some pictures from this escapade of ours. The scenery really was quite breathtaking.