We had leftover Thai food for breakfast since we couldn't really see when we'd actually be at the cottage for lunch and we had a lot of other restaurants to check out for suppers. Then we got in the car and headed to the post office to mail a postcard.
At the P.O. we were 1-cent short of the stamp price and the counter guys said, "Don't worry about it. Life's too short." This, for a postcard that Alan got for free at the Petaluma information desk because they were 3 for a dollar and he asked how much for only one so the woman behind the desk said, "Oh, just take it."
We got directions on how to head out of town toward Point Reyes. It was a very windy, narrow road through dry foothills that reminded me of parts of Colorado. Once we got to the coast, we drove about 20 miles through park lands (Point Reyes is a National Seashore) to get to the lighthouse. We passed a LOT of cattle ranches, most dating from the mid-1800s and all very cleverly named things like "A Ranch" through "G Ranch."
We hiked out to the lighthouse which include 30-floors worth of stairs that got us below the cloud line to where the actual lighthouse is.(View of the lighthouse from the top of the stairs)
It was an impressive site and well worth the drive and walk. By the time we'd hiked back up the stairs, it was past noon and we were starving.
(View of the lighthouse once you get below the clouds.)
We headed back out the way we came and stopped by an oyster farm (Drake's Bay). We got half a dozen fresh-from-the-sea oysters on the half-shell for an appetizer then continued on our way.(The oyster farm at Drake's Bay.)
(The wire "strings" that the oysters are 'planted' on. They hang down from floating platforms and when it's harvest time, they pull up the strings and cut the oysters off with a hand-held jackhammer sort of thing.)We ended up having lunch at a place called Pricilla's in Inverness (still inside the park)...wonderful crab melt and salmon burger sandwiches on the patio.
We left the park and got back on Highway 1 headed north to Bodega Bay.
In Bodega Bay, we stopped at a kite-n-candy store for some salt-water taffy and a grocery store across the street for cold drinks and a bathroom. We consulted a map and decided that going any further north would require a lot more miles than we had daylight left so we headed back toward Petaluma.
On the way back to Seredipity, we stopped by our favorite Lucky store for another $1.99 bottle of wine. Alan took a nap and I started reading a Bones book I brought along.
I'd had "a Kathy Reichs book" on my reading list for a while and just happened to see one when I was at the store before leaving home so I decided that it was A Sign and I bought it. I've been a big fan of Bones, the TV series for a long time and when I found out the series was based on a series of books, I wanted to check them out.
This book was called Bones to Ashes. Other than the fact that the main character is a female forensic anthropologist, it doesn't really bear much resemblance to the TV show. It was a good mystery story, though.
Alan woke up from his nap and we decided we'd try Pinky's Pizza, just a block up the street. Their motto, emblazoned in neon in their front window, is "We don't have sissy boy, limp crust pizza." And they're right. The crust is delightfully chewy without being bready or doughy, slightly crispy on the bottom, and the sauce had a very nice kick to it.
Alan brought it home and we ate at the dining room table in front of the fireplace (no fire) while 'holding feet' under the table. (Hey, it's our honeymoon...we're allowed to be a little disgustingly mooshy.) After supper, we planned our Tuesday then went to bed.
