Road Trip - Day 3 - morning in Manchester Beach

After leaving the Bay Area we continued without a plan, itinerary, or reservation anywhere. It was exciting to do a road trip like this! We stayed on the inland freeway passing countless vineyards before cutting across west to the coastline. (No, we drove through but no wine-tasting for us - it's not our thing although the countryside is lovely and I certainly appreciated that!)

Patrick loves the sea, of course: growing up in a seaside town in Northern Ireland and being in the navy... he adores being by the water. I enjoy it, too - don't get me wrong. But I love trees. Trees are my thing. Even more than the desert and coastline. Heck, I even partly chose my college: UC Irvine, just because it had huge, luscious, gorgeous trees all over campus and especially the center park.

So, we needed a little break and a place to figure out where we were and what our plan for the day was. We saw a sign and pulled into Manchester State Park - which was a pleasant, empty beach save the white carcasses of dried and washed up huge redwood trees on the sand. Patrick immediately started shooting his black and white film. We made the mental note that we might actually spend the night there at that beach - - there was a campground and we had brought our tent and gear in case we never found hotels. After a bit of photography we decided to see what was up north, noting we could always return to camp at the beach.