A big tree, a big ocean and fat starfish...

As good as it gets...North California beach

Fern Canyon ferns

Underwater Marc

A pair of hooligans

Starfish in love

Rocks to die for

A Happy Birthday girl

I didn't ask for much for my 66th birthday.
I told Marc I just wanted to go to the beach, stand where I could hear and feel the roar of the surf and see the Redwoods in California.
I wanted to stay in a place that offered more than the standard hotel experience. I'd pay a little extra for the ocean front view and the solitude.
Oh, and our visit would have to be sandwiched in between high school graduations and writing deadlines.
We'd have to fly over and back in a jet and a puddle-jumper that could land in the Eureka/Arcata airport.
Marc signed on and off we went for three days.
We hiked and splashed and discovered all kinds of natural beauty on the northern California coast.
We stood almost face to hindquarters with a major herd of elk that weren't that impressed with us.
We climbed down the dangerous face of a cliff to get to the beach rocks and then up again so our leg muscles could claim a serious workout.
One morning we combed the beach tide pools with about a hundred schoolkids looking for critters, finding big, fat, pink, orange and red starfish tucked in all the crevasses and masses of anemones.
We explored Fern Canyon which is really a magical kind of trail through the water back, back, back into a place where the walls drip and sparkle and rain down on everyone who comes in for a look. (It's actually where Steven Spielberg filmed "Jurassic Park, the Lost World" because it feels so primeval and ethereal.)
From our bed and breakfast (Turtle Rocks Oceanfront Inn), we could hear the barking sea lions covering the rocks in the ocean...all day and all night!
Inside the trail dedicated to Lady Bird Johnson, we stretched our necks to see to the top of giant Redwoods that are thousands of years old and huge!
Some are Fire Trees, trees that have been completely burnt out inside yet still live to support others.
For a mini-vacation for me, it completely worked.
I came away fulfilled, aware that there's still so much more to see in this world and it's a good idea to stay healthy enough to check more of it out!
I just have to live another 66 years or so.

Mini me, bottom right...honest..I'm only a centimeter tall