Point Reyes - 8/12/2016

Today we headed north.  We are going to the Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County but first we have to get there.

San Francisco is interesting in that there are freeways and interstates south of the city and north of the city but there are none that connect the north and south highways.  You have two choices, if you want to stay on freeways/interstates then you have to cross over to Oakland and go a long way out of your way or, alternatively, you have to drive right through the city on regular city streets.  What a pain but that is what we did.

We drove thru the city, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and proceeded north.  We then had to drive thru the Golden Gate National Recreation Area to get to Point Reyes.  If you look at this area on a map, Point Reyes seems to be just glued onto the edge of California and there is a reason for this.  Point Reyes is on the Pacific plate whereas the rest of Marin County is on the North American plate and you have to cross the San Andreas fault to reach the point.  The relative motion of the plates is such that about 2 million years ago, Point Reyes was south of San Francisco.

Our first stop was the visitors' center where we read up on the history of the area.  It was discovered by Sir Francis Drake who is believed to have beached his ship the Golden Hinde here for repairs in 1579 and he named it Nova Albion (New England).  In 1603, it was named by the Spanish Punto de los Reyes (King's Point).  Obviously the Spanish name is the one that stuck.  It is interesting that the Spanish, Portuguese and English sailed these waters but, because of the prevalence of fog, none of them discovered San Francisco Bay until is was found by a Spanish land expedition in 1769.

Our next stop was the Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company where we had booked a tour and tasting.  First problem we had was finding it as we couldn't find any signs for it.  As it turns out the signs are for the Giacomini Farm as that is the family name and where the cheese company is located.  This dairy farm was started in 1959 by Bob and Dean Giacomini with 150 cows with the intent of selling milk to the local creameries.  They also raised four daughters who completed their education and moved off the farm to pursue careers.  By the mid 1990s, the dairy farm had grown to over 500 head and Bob wanted to expand the business by taking up cheese making but needed help. He asked his daughters to come back to the farm and help him.  They left their careers, came back to the farm and in 2000 produced their first wheels of blue cheese.  Here are some photos I took as we toured the facilities.

This is the showroom and offices.

This is a calf that was a couple of days old and missing his momma.  You could see the dried up remnants of the umbilical cord hanging from his stomach.  He was mooing very plaintively as I guess he was hungry.

Here is a closer shot.

They take the calves away from their mothers shortly after they are born so that they can control how much they eat and here you can see a number of calves in their shelters waiting to be fed.

They had a very nice flower garden along the side of their showroom and I took some shots of some of the nicer blooms.

And here is a bee busy pollinating a flower on a squash vine.

And the center piece on the coffee table.

They treated us right as the tour started out with hand made cookie ice cream sandwiches.

We then proceeded on our tour.  The larger building on the left is the milking barn and the smaller on the right is an equipment shed.

If you will look closely in this photo you will see a generator under the overhang.  In an effort to be as green as possible (and to save some money) they recover methane from decaying cow manure and use it to generate electricity for their operations.  About half of their electricity is provided by the generator.

Here is the inside of the milking barn.  There are two milking lines, each handling five cows at a time.  As you can see from the crowd, the cows are always eager to get milked and are milked several times a day.

Next we visited the birthing area where a cow had just given birth to a calf.  I was able to shoot this video of the calf getting to its feet for the very first time.

And here you see the new fellow staying close to mom.

Here is one of the barns where the cows spend their time between milkings.

Here is the feed barn.  The bales of hay that you see are harvested from the fields of the farm and the type of grasses that grow in this area give their cheeses a distinctive taste.

Now came the part we were waiting for, the cheese tasting.  They had out sample of all the cheeses they produce: the Original Blue, Bay Blue, Toma, White Cheddar, and Mozzarella.  All were really, really good.  It particular I liked the Bay Blue which reminded me of a Stilton and was not quite as sharp as the Original Blue and the Toma.  We were able to purchase blocks of cheese to take with us and I took advantage of that.

We next headed out onto the Point Reyes peninsula to visit the lighthouse.  It's about a half hour drive and you pass a lot of historic dairy farms along the way.  When we got to the end of the point it was getting late in the afternoon and the fog was starting to roll in.  Here is a shot of the path leading out to the lighthouse.

And this video gives you an idea of how fast the fog was rolling in.

As we got to the point we passed these apartments originally for the men who operated the light house and now used by Park Service employees.  No way to tell from this photo but they have a nice view of the Pacific out their back windows.

Here is what we came to see, the Point Reyes Lighthouse.  Point Reyes is the windiest place on the Pacific coast and the second foggiest place on the North American continent and Point Reyes was infamous for the numerous ship wrecks.  So in 1870, this lighthouse was built with the Fresnel lens and clockwork mechanism imported from France.  The cliff at this point is 600 feet above the sea and so 300 feet below the cliff top an area was blasted out with dynamite to clear a level space for the lighthouse.  Once the lighthouse was in operation, it was the job of the lighthouse keeper and his three assistants to descend the 30 stories to the lighthouse at sunset, trim and light the wick of the oil lamp and wind the clockwork mechanism by lifting the 170 pound weight 17 feet that powered it.  As the weight descended it rotated the Fresnel lamp mechanism that caused the light to appear to flash every five seconds.  After 2 hours and 20 minutes the weight would have reached ground level and they would have to raise it again to keep the mechanism powered.  At dawn, they would turn the lamp off.  They also needed to keep the steam boiler that powered the fog horn stoked.  After a six hour shift they got to climb the 30 stories back up to the top of the cliff.  Sometimes they would have to climb the stairs on hands and knees because of the winds.  Peak winds clocked at Point Reyes were 133 mph and 60 mph winds are common.  Today the lighthouse is automated and has no keepers.

Because of the fog, this is what we saw most of the time.

With an occasional glimpse that proved that the lighthouse was really there.

Here is a photo of some of the highly eroded rock on the cliff.

And because of the steady winds, the trees have a tilt.

We did see some deer.  This guy was only about 20 ft. away and obviously used to people.

After leaving the lighthouse we drove east to take a look at Drake's Bay and here is a photo of the bay.

And along the shore of the bay were sea lions basking in the sun.

Here is another photo of the bay looking south.

From here we headed back to San Francisco and stopped at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Huynh Hiep.  Unfortunately. finding a place to park in this section of town is nigh on impossible.  Dave dropped Pat and I off and we were seated in the restaurant and then had to wait about a half hour before Dave found a parking space and could join us.

This evening we said goodbye to Dave as tomorrow we are on our way to La Jolla to visit my sister and brother-in-law and my Mom.