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| Golden Gate Bridge |
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| San Francisco Bay |
More specifically, the Sonoma Coastline. Wow! Don't get me wrong - I thoroughly enjoyed wine country, zip-lining through the redwoods, and floating down the Russian River, too, but the coast...ahhh!...grabbed hold of my very soul!
It's gonna take two or three blog posts to share my best photos and my reflections on this lovely adventure, so bear with me, Friends and followers.
Given these last few, rather stressful, years in our life together... and, the toll it has taken on our marriage...Don knew, intuitively, that we desperately needed a time of renewal. Just us. No distractions (Okay!...MUCH fewer distractions.) And, more than just a day or two this time.
He did not disappoint. My hero!! He proved how well he knows me, knows my heart, with this adventure.
And, he did this in true "Don-style"...aka. Go big or go home!
We haven't taken a trip together, just the two of us, since our honeymoon 22 years ago!
I'm sure those of you who've been married for quite awhile can relate - we even went through a stretch of time where we forgot to even "date" one another in the throes of daily life with young children and making ends meet, financially.
If you know any couples in that stage of life, offer to babysit! In fact, TELL them, "We'll be over at 5pm on Friday, you are going out on a date!"
It is incredibly important to regularly revisit why you LIKED your spouse in the first place. That's the glue that keeps you together through those inevitable stressful, sometimes painful, times in your journey together.
Anyway, our week in California was wonderful! A grand adventure, indeed!
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| Bodega Bay |
We created many memories together that will warm our hearts and refresh our minds for years to come. Stories and reflections...all the fascinating things we've learned!.... we will share with our kids, our siblings, our parents, our future grandkids....basically, anyone who'll listen!
AND...we've determined we will NOT be waiting 20 years to do it again. In fact, our new goal? Plan a week-long "adventure", just the two of us, every two or three years!
See unique places. Check things off our "bucket lists". Try new foods. Meet interesting people. Relax and unplug.
On that note, I'll shut up and share a few more great photos from the Sonoma coast, where we spent the first three days of our trip.
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| Photo credit: Don Westbrook, my hubby! |
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| That's me on the adirondack chair! (Don gets photo credit.) |
The Pacific coast is so different from the Atlantic coast. I loved seeing the seals and sea lions up close and watching a few hump-back whales move along the coast to warmer waters for the winter.
The rock formations. The unique critters in the tidal pools. And, the beautiful coastal vegetation. Wow! (I know. I'm such a geek!)
And, simply driving up and down Coastal Highway route 1...in a convertible BMW...was thrilling! I thought our PA roads were windy and dangerous. We got nothin' on CA route 1! (Large sections have no guard rails along the 100+ foot drops - Yikes!)
The coast was a bit chilly: about 47 degrees in the early morning, warming up to 68 or so. We experienced a heavy coastal fog each morning that usually cleared by mid-afternoon.
The really cool thing? Every place we visited lay within the same county, 1,567 square miles, yet each location had its own distinctive climate. (More about that later!)
Hope you enjoyed these photos. FYI: Don took nearly half of our 200+ photos! He's a regular old photographer, now! In my next post, I'll share more about our sight-seeing, the places we visited, and some terrific photos. Check back in a few days, Friends.
Great stuff Jen!
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