Drakes Beach - Part One

Sometimes you just need to see the ocean. So, we hopped in the car and drove the 200 miles west until we hit the Point Reyes National Seashore. We're still enduring triple digits here in the valley and spending some time in 60 degree temps on the coast sounded absolutely divine.

We've been wanting to explore this area for a while now--and wow, was it beautiful!

Our first stop was Drakes Beach...

This is the first beach I've seen with sandstone cliffs...

The landscape was absolutely stunning, even in the early morning light...

It was 8:00 in the morning and we had the entire beach to ourselves...

In the distance, we could see huge flocks of birds (we're talking thousands) flying across the water...

At first we thought they were cormorants because of how low they sit in the water, but then we thought they might be guillemots...

And then when we got home and put the photos in our ID app, it told us they are loons!

You might remember that we had our very first loon sighting in the mountains at Lassen VNP last year. (Read that post here.) So, you can imagine how baffling it was to have our second sighting hundreds of miles away and on the beach no less.

More pics of Drakes Beach on tomorrow's post...