September 28-30, 2024
Start of the trip! September 28 was a full day of travel, and September 29 was a full day of sight-seeing. I did not get any pictures during this time because my focus tends to be fauna and flora rather than cityscapes and slice of life.
September 30 was a different story! We (Loki, my host, and I) went out to Malibu to specifically photograph the various shapes of pipers.
October 1-3, 2024
End of my time in LA and onward to central California! My final day and a half in LA was a time of relaxation and good company. We stayed home, and there was not much to share beyond catching up on my overdue work and treating my host to some homecooked Jewish meals.
On October 3, my dad and I headed over to the Sonoma coastline to find a rock. Not just any rock, but the Sunset Boulders! At the time, we did not know what they were, except that a YouTube channel put them on our radar the night before, and my dad claimed he knew where they were... this was an instance of where we could have saved so much time by googling instead of trying to do things ourselves. Nonetheless, we found the boulders: from television screens to our immediate surroundings. This was also a good opportunity to share my joy of birding with him. I saw my first Northern Harrier and had fun picking out the various sparrows and bush birds that are so foreign to me.
October 4
Road trip day 1. Santa Rosa -> San Jose -> Flying to Monterrey -> Fly to San Jose -> Birding at Napa-Sonoma Marshes wildlife area -> Avenue of the Giants (night) -> Eureka.
October 5
Road trip day 2. Eureka -> Avenue of the Giants -> Fort Bragg (bird pictures) -> Mendocino -> Point Arena -> Bodega Bay -> Santa Rosa.
October 6
Road trip day 3. Santa Rosa -> Tomales Bay -> John Muir highway -> Golden Gate -> Pacifica -> Half Moon Bay -> San Jose -> Fly to Santa Rosa -> Fly to Half Moon Bay -> Fly to Santa Rose -> Fly to San Jose -> Controlled plane crash -> Drive to Santa Rosa.
October 7/8
Recovery. Nada. Begin road trip with my mother (belated birthday gift, she's always wanted to join me for one of these). Santa Rosa -> Bodega Bay -> Point Arena -> Mendocino -> Willets.
October 9
Continuing the road trip with my mother from Willets -> Avenue of the Giants -> Humbolt Botanical Gardens -> Sequoia Park Zoo -> Newton B Drury Scenic Parkway -> Crescent City.
October 10
Onward from Crescent City -> Jebediah Smith Redwoods State Park -> Cave Junction -> Eight Mile Mountain Botanicals -> Grants Pass -> Crescent City with some star gazing and hopeful thinking in-between. We intended to see the auroras that night but they did not go far enough south for us.
October 11
Onward to Redding, CA! Roadtrip over.