Sunset Beach State Park.

We left Carpentaria and headed north 4 hours toward Watsonville California and Sunset Beach State Park.

To say the drive was breathtaking does not do the experience justice. It would be like describing a open sun flower as “cool,” or the first sip of cool water on a burning hot day as “nice.”

The drive on the 101 outside of Carpentaria is amazing, to a degree, life changing.

You have acres of blooming wild flowers, mile upon mile of vineyards, mountains, oaks, horse farms, orchards and then there is the ocean.

Breath taking vistas as far as the eye can see.

The 101 is a 4 lane highway, two lanes in each direction, but it is an easy road to drive ...with the exception of a racing pickup truck that spewed trash and a half filled gas container from its open bed. The red can hit the road, careened of one car only to fly right past ours fluid flying as it spun.

Exciting to say the least.

We motored past Golita, Hurst Castle and Gonzales on the road to Salinas. Salinas is where the community of Watsonville is and of course, Sunset Beach State Park.

Entering Salinas we drive through pines and cedars, willows and cottonwood all so dense you could not see through the thickness.

Breaking free of the forests we enter prarie grassland then a sparcely laid out farm/residential area. Eclectic to say the least. The beach was beautiful wide and clean. Scattered across the sand were shells, sand dollars and beached jellyfish. Behind the campground were miles of what looked like kale fields.

We had Vicki’s wonderful grilled onion avacado burgers and after a rousing game of street pickle ball, and a modified game of Kingdomino (which I lost) we hit the sack for an early morning trek for Fort Bragg CA.