Monday July 15, 2002 – Another day and state brought another change in scenery today. We got up a bit later today and ate breakfast in one of the downtown Reno casinos and then headed out. Since we only had a few hundred miles to drive my dad drove the whole way today. We left Reno around 10:30 and were soon in California. The mountains seemed to pop up again as soon as we got into California. This time they had even more foliage and were even more beautiful than the ones we had seen the last couple days. Just after we entered California Josie started her movie Holiday in the Sun, I opted to listen to some music and contemplate life a bit while watching the beautiful scenery instead. Sacramento went by in a flash, we hardly got a look at the city which might be interesting to explore. One thing that continually strikes me is how fast these western cities fade into the country. Back home we have miles and miles of suburbs before you get to the country, but here in minutes you can go from urban to farmland or desert. About three in the afternoon we arrived at our destination of Novato, CA where we checked into our hotel and picked up a map and some information about Marin County, CA. We then headed to Muir Woods National Monument where you can walk through paths to see a costal redwood forest, I got some great pictures there and the scenery was truly breathtaking. Someone had suggested we take a more scenic route back to Novato so we took California SR 1 back up the coast for a ways, which was a very interesting ride right along the cliffs down to the Pacific Ocean (our first look at it!) with hairpin turns and people flying by. I think it made my Dad a bit nervous to be going along making all those turns with our car. Anyway the 15 minute ride to get to Muir Woods was about an hour and a half ride home but it was very scenic and we got to see a couple of reservoirs and a number of canyons. When we got back we found a great local pizza place in Novato called Mary’s Pizza Shack. We had a good dinner there and headed back to the hotel where Noah and Josie decided to go ahead and take a swim although the rest of us thought it was a bit cool outside for that. Tomorrow morning we’re going to head into San Francisco, drive around a bit and get lunch then Anna and I head to TechTV for a live ScreenSavers show which we’re both excited for.
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