I love being outside, there are so many places I could call favorites. I love the Mendocino Headlands, where tiny succulents cling onto cliffs and waves of color from whatever is blooming blankets the bluffs under overcast sky. Tidepools at the base of the cliffs, and tucked inside their caves, hold microcosms filled with brightly colored sponges, nudibranch, anemones, chiton, starfish, urchins and other invertebrates. Out on the water Oystercatchers are easily spotted for their bright orange beaks as they dive across the grey sky and into the dark waters.
I love Salt Point, which is just down the coast from the town of Mendocino by about an hour and a hald. Salt Point seemed so big and magical to me as a child where, beneath sandstone cliffs, my family would harvest abalone for dinner, and up on the hill, huckleberries from the woods for our pancake breakfast. I recently visited for the first time as an adult, and it is still magical, though not quite so big. I took my friend from Western North Carolina (another of my favorite places) to experience the coast of Northern CA. Under a stone archway swallows had built their mud-tunnel nests and were swooping and diving around us as my friend and I explored the wild rocks. Traces of chalk lingered on rocks, articulating fragments of beta from people climbing the sandstone formations and boulders that border the ocean there. The rock reminded me of Death Valley (CA) one minute, and Hueco Tanks (TX) the next. I feel very grateful to be able to say my list of favorite places keeps growing longer every year.
