Muir Woods and Beach

Since one of our big decisions on leaving for this trip was not to bring a car--a tough one, but we didn't want to be lugging so much and we didn't think we'd need one all that often, so we decided to occasionally rent a car when we needed one.  Jaime drove us into Petaluma to pick up a car and we headed out to Muir Woods soon thereafter.

It is so dark and loamy and green!

Well, sometimes, everything doesn't go as planned, but it still ends up being pretty spectacular.  Muir Woods does not let dogs on any of the trails.  As you may know, we go very few places where Boo is not welcome, but we don't like leaving him in a car when we can't be sure he will be safe.  It was fairly hot that day, so we took a quick peak into the park to get an idea of how beautiful, cool and green it was (above) and then headed to the beach, where Boo was allowed to be with us.

Who could say no to this cutie wootie:?

We opened up that great Zin, laid back and enjoyed the people watching.  The most incredible part of the day was at some point seeing spouting and, by the end of the afternoon, we had spotted probably 10-15 whales which absolutely made our day!  (Again, so sorry for no pictures--even my trusty little digital died and cannot be fixed without sending it into the manufacturers-so, only IPhone pics from now on).

People watching was top notch.

The view up the coast (or down?) was so pretty.

We had a great evening enjoying burgers and cake for Liv's 11th birthday!  We felt so thrilled to be part of their family celebration.  Tiny note:  this family is just beautiful-the kids behave, everyone cares for each other no matter what-Jim and I were so happy to be included in their circle!

Pictures of family coming up......