TO THE COAST
My wife and I headed over to the coast for the weekend, sans kids, to celebrate our birthdays this month. Both of our happy days are at the end of January (well as happy as you can be at my age). My wife loves the ocean and beach, and I was hoping to see some waterfalls of course. The bad news though is that it has not rained in January. Why is it that whenever I plan a big waterfall vacation to the CA coast, I always pick dry times of the year! It happened last year and the year before as well. It was going to be interesting to see if the falls were all completely dry or not, I did not have my hopes too high.
We arrived very early at this waterfall, called Andrew Molera Falls after the state park that it is in. It is very easy to get to but I had never been here before so thus I was anxious to remedy this silly faux pas.
Andrew Molera Falls is an ugly waterfall. Seriously. There are fallen logs all over the place at this waterfall. I can think of other waterfalls where fallen logs across the falls actually enhance the waterfall’s beauty and character (Russian Gulch Falls, Lion Slide Falls). But the fallen logs across Andrew Molera Falls do no such thing. Ah well, what can you do? Well, you can look for alternative viewpoints. And that is what I did. My wife stayed at the overlook while I scally wagged down the hill to the creek, crossed it, then made my way up and around fallen logs, and down to the base of the falls. Whew. Once down I realized I would have to get my feet wet, getting into the creek and climbing up a mini cascade where I could get the view point I wanted. My wife, watching me from afar, said I looked like a hobbit with bare feet and rolled up pants, scampering in the creek. It was fun though and pretty cool standing under the fallen logs and looking up at the 35 ft. high waterfall. Did I make this ugly waterfall look pretty? You be the judge.
As for the flow … well it was not dry! It was actually flowing better than I expected and it was the same thing at our next stop (Pfeiffer Falls). So this gave me some hope for the rest of the weekend.
The one bad thing that happened here though? Tara somehow picked up a tick while sitting here waiting for me. She did not notice the thing biting her until the next day and it was bad by then. I don’t understand how she could not notice a tick biting her that long but this was the only possible place she could have picked it up. When we got home she went to see the doctor and is on antibiotics to be on the safe side and we pray this will keep her from getting any nasty disease. Other than this (oh and the hotel reservation mess up – sigh) we had a great time at the coast.