Spring in California

What an absolutely wonderful vacation to California! Hiking, meeting hippies, Berkley, Japan town, it was all around another wonderful experience. After we arrived, we drove for about an hour on the curviest road known to man. It very much resembled the Hana highway in Hawaii. It was terrible! I don't know how many times I had to get out and sit outside because of motion sickness. The worst part was, it was hard to enjoy the spectacular view when all we were thinking was, "When is this going to be over!" It was fantastic. :/ Finally we arrived a little town about thirty minutes out of San Fransisco called Bolinas. Bolinas was a very small town, less than one thousand inhabitants and apparently they don't like tourists. Luckily we blended in extremely well, we were very subtle about taking pictures. ;) Our cottage there was small, but like all the other places we have stayed it definitely grew on us. We had a large porch where a couple nights we had cook outs and a small path leading up to a beautiful patio. On the patio you could see the ocean and all of the surfers. We were about a five minute walk away from the town, so often we would walk to the beach, smoothie shop, or book store. The first day, we took two small hikes. The first was to the bird observatory where we had quite a muddy experience. Up until the mud river it was beautiful. We weren't so happy when our shoes were soaked through and pants completely filthy. Lets just say, we didn't see any birds... The next hike was much better, we walked on this zig zag path down to a bunch of tide pools and cliffs. We had a lot of fun looking in all the pools at starfish, sea urchins, and snails. (of course Gabe had to poke each and every one of them) Belle and I climbed on what looked like sand cliffs, but they were really pieces of rock. It as a lot of fun! The hike back up was just as spectacular as coming down, even though it was tiring the view made up for it. Went to bed early that very early that night. Our next hike was eight miles. We were pumped! It had been a long time since we had done a big hike together. It was on the coast and every step lead to yet another beautiful view. we went around curves and up hills and soon we came to a really steep cliff that lead to a waterfall. There was a path leading down and we were all attempting to climb down it and not fall in to the river. It was worth it when we got down. We right next to a big rushing river, which lead over the cliff into a miraculous waterfall that was streaming into the ocean. Then we found out there was a path down to the beach. If you went down to the beach you could go right up next to the waterfall. It wasn't so much a path as it was a giant cliff that you had to climb down. Dad and I decided we would go down. It was actually easier than I expected, we had to slide on our butts down because it was very slippery. When we got down we stood at the base of the waterfall and took massive amounts of pictures. The hike back, was lets just say really really really tiring!!! Again another night of eating and going straight to bed. The next day we just took it easy, belle and I went to the beach and relaxed and mom and dad stayed home. (mostly napping) Gabe, being Gabe went for another run. (he's crazy) One of my favorite days we spent in California was the day we went into San Fransisco. We all got to pick one thing we really wanted to see while we were there, we started with Gabe. Gabe decided he wanted to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was amazing, you could see Alcatraz prison in the middle of the bay, as well as Angel island where immigrants from Asia passed through to get to the United States. (Like Ellis Island in New York) It was amazing, it was unbelievable that the gigantic bridge was being held up by wires. The next stop was Isabel's choice, Japan town. Japan town is located in the center of the city and it is a huge area where there are Japanese restaurants and stores. We had gigantic bowls of Ramen Noodles, which we ate with chopsticks. (We were professionals with chopsticks :) We also went into many shops that had a lot of anime and manga. We were also there when they were celebrating their cherry blossom festival. They had beautiful cherry blossom trees inside and out. I got to choose our last stop on our trip in the city, so we visited UC Berkley. We had a great time! We walked all over the gorgeous campus, and had frozen yogurt inside the town. We even went up to the Science center where we had a view of Berkley, we also tried getting into the space building but it was closed. :( Overall, that was a highlight for me. The last day we went on another eight mile hike. It was a pretty hike through the woods, it lead to a big rock arch that we sat on top of. Dad, Gabe, Isabel, and I went down to the river where the water was rushing into the arch. The last night there, we built a fire on the patio and roasted marshmallows. This was a spectacular trip, and I will definitely be returning to California!