Leon Turnbull Photography

Ocean, sunset, waterfall. What more could you possibly want?

Our day on Saturday at the coast was relaxing and pretty much perfect. We slept in, not getting up for any sunrise shooting. We had breakfast and went to the beach, where we saw quite a few birds, including pelicans and egrets. After that, we explored the shops in Bodega Bay, had lunch, then went up to Salt Point State Park for the afternoon.

I’ve never been there before, but it has been on my list for quite some time to go there. It is a long, slow drive up from Bodega Bay, even though it is only 30 miles. That highway is as windy as it gets. When we finally arrived, we did a lot of exploring all afternoon. We walked along pretty flowers, and along the ocean. We saw plenty of wildlife. We even saw waterfalls.

There are two waterfalls that drop into the ocean at Salt Point State Park. Both are small, but the nicest one by far is at Phillips Gulch. This waterfall is only 15 ft. high, but when we got here in the afternoon, I knew right away that I wanted to come back to shoot it at sunset.

We went down to Stump Beach where we had our dinner, and saw a sick or injured seal come up on the beach. Poor little guy. We also saw quite a few birds here, including a couple osprey. After dinner, we returned to Phillips Gulch.

It wasn’t nearly as cold as the previous evening, in fact, it was quite warm, more like what I was expecting this weekend. But the warm weather makes for lousy sunsets. No clouds on the horizon, and again the sunset fizzled. But the evening light on the falls more than made up for the lack of color in the sky. It was a perfect place to enjoy the sunset, and we had the place all to ourselves. This location is a bit off the beaten path, and not very many people know about it. But if I’m ever back to Salt Point State Park, this will be my destination again for sunset (especially, if there are clouds). It would be even nicer in the winter when the waterfall is flowing a bit better too.

Bodega Bay is an interesting place. Everyone seems to know each other, and everyone seems to smoke, drink, and/or do drugs. I guess if you live in such a small place, there’s not much else to do except those three things.

We saw plenty of wildlife when we were there, much more than I usually see when I am at the coast. We saw seals, sea lions, deer, and even a whale. We also saw plenty of birds including pelicans, egrets, herons, osprey, cormorants, you name it we saw it. The birds did not seem to display any sort of killer aggressiveness towards human-kind. When you are in Bodega Bay, you have to say that. This is where they filmed “The Birds”, after all. The did display aggresiveness towards each other and towards the sea lions, but that is something else.

One very cool location is at the Inn at the Tides restaurant. The sea lions hang out right there at the docks, waiting for handouts from the fishermen. I was able to get some great close-ups of them (while my wife was spending lots of money in the gift shop), and also of other birds there.

Here’s another one:

We just returned from a fabulous weekend in Bodega Bay, on the coast of California. It was a quick get away for my wife and I to celebrate our 10th anniversary.We left the kids with Tara’s parents and headed over on Friday afternoon.

We were staying at the swanky Bodega Bay Lodge. It was a very special occasion and I wanted to stay some place very special. My wife would rather me spend that kind of money on a nice place like this every once in awhile, rather than spending it on jewelry or something like that. That’s good, because I’d rather spend it on that too. Our stay at Bodega Bay Lodge was wonderful. The room was immaculately clean, nothing out of place. The only negative thing I can say about it is that it could have been more “luxurious”. For example, they had rather cheap pictures on the walls. Perhaps I can talk them into buying my photos for their walls. 🙂

The idea was to hit sunset at Bodega Head on Friday evening. Well, it may have been a fabulous weekend, but it was not perfect weather-wise. I think Friday and Saturday were the two most color-less sunsets I have ever witnessed. There was nary a cloud in the sky either night, and it was kinda hazy out on the water, so the sunset just fizzled, the sun just plopped down into the haze and that was all she wrote. My friend Brian must know something more than I, because he had fabulous clouds at the coast the weekend before. Whenever I am there, it seems there is just nothing. Blah Blah Blah. And not to mention, on Friday it was COLD! Coming from 100 degrees in Sacramento, you would think it would be somewhat warm at the coast. But it felt like winter, very cold and very windy, and I was definitely not dressed for it. We had to sit quite a while out in the cold waiting for the sun to come down, it was definitely not worth our efforts and I was not pleased with any of the photos I took on that first evening.

Well, things picked up quite a bit after that first sunset. We went to see St. Teresa of Avila church in Bodega. The schoolhouse behind the church was made very famous in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic movie “The Birds”. The church was briefly seen in the movie as well, but it was made more famous by Ansel Adams. I wanted a different take on this church, and my idea was to photograph the church at night. I thought I would have some light from the half moon to illuminate the scene; we did not, but we were here early enough that I did not need it. I think it turned out fairly well. The exposure was 53 seconds at f/4.

When I woke up on my last morning in Yosemite, I was very very sore and very very tired. I could barely walk because of blisters on my feet. I knew I could not go on any more extended hikes. Maybe I could, but I didn’t want to. I decided to pack up and go home, and make one detour in the process.

That detour was to Carlon Falls on the South Fork Tuolumne River, which is located just outside the park. It is an easy 1.5 mile walk to the falls along the river. I started hiking at about sunrise, which was enough time to make it to the falls before the sun rose above the canyon. Carlon Falls is a nice 26 ft. drop, and it was an enjoyable hike, which I took on the slow side due to my blistered feet.

I didn’t see any bears this weekend at Yosemite National Park. The lady at the campground told me there were three bear break-ins (to cars) the previous night I arrived. It amazes me that people would leave food in their cars, thinking that was okay. It is interesting to note, that I have never ever seen a bear in any national park I have been to. Supposedly, that is the one place you should be able to see bears commonly. But not me. I have seen bears in California in other places, out hiking, or driving. But never in national parks. So it didn’t surprise me that I didn’t see any bears this time around. But for some reason, I had a feeling that I might see a bear this morning. But I did not. The only wildlife I did see in Yosemite was a coyote, and a couple deer. Perhaps my eyes were too fixated on all the amazing waterfalls to notice the bears and cougars right behind me. 🙂

My adventure this past weekend started out at 4AM and ended up with a 7 ft. high waterfall. That’s a lot of effort for not much payback.

It is always a big effort getting up so darn early in the morning. But with sunrise now at 6AM, and considering it takes at least an hour and a half to drive anywhere interesting, it is a necessity.

My plan was to explore the Silver Fork American River at Kyburz. I was hoping to find a decent sized waterfall on that river. I had no idea, really, if there was one or not. I just had a thought that there might be one, there should be one, and I was meaning to explore it. I had a couple possibilities marked out on my map. When I got there, and arrived at those possibilities, I realized that my big effort was for naught. No waterfalls. But I didn’t want my day to be a total loss, so I scrambled down to the river anyway. When I got down there, I found a 5 ft. high waterfall. Eh. Not too exciting, but I took a photo of it. It was pretty steep scrambling down there and took more time than I wanted to. I had a second destination in mind as well.

That was Alder Creek, 5 miles down the road from Kyburz. When Rob and I were driving home from Bassi Falls the other day, way up on Ice House Rd., we noticed a waterfall off in the distance across the canyon. It looked like a big one. Was it really a waterfall? It was hard to tell from so far away. When I got home, I studied my maps, and saw that yes there a possible waterfall. But I wasn’t sure which drainage it would be. I thought maybe Alder Creek was the ticket. It wasn’t. The correct drainage was Mill Creek, and yes there is a waterfall on that creek. A big one. But I’m not sure (yet) how to get to it. I’ll be working on that. In the meantime, my idea for this day was to explore Alder Creek. I think there might be a waterfall on Alder Creek as well. I found a trail leading up the creek, and at first it looked very promising and very easy going, but then it stopped. At this 7 ft. high waterfall. Continuing to bush whack up the creek for another mile was not on my list of things that I wanted to do this day. Maybe another day. So anyway, I just stopped here at this mini falls for a quickie photo. Then off home I did go. And arrived back at the house to find my wife still sleeping. ha ha.