A Windy, Misty, Foggy, Chilly Day at Pt. Reyes

This last week I was listening to a program about site-seeing and traveling around Northern California on our local NPR channel. One of the locations they spoke of was Pt. Reyes, and they mentioned that even at the end of April grey whales can be seen from shore. It seemed to be a pretty nice day here in the East Bay, so we were hoping that would hold true for the shoreline as well. However, we were not so lucky this time around! We enjoyed a lovely, picturesque drive through the North Bay area and arrived at the Pt. Reyes National Seashore about an hour and a half after leaving our home. We drove out as far as we could to the parking area to walk up to the lighthouse, which is supposed to provide some of the best whale watching in the area. By the time we got to this area, the fog and built up, the winds were gusting so hard I could hardly stand up straight, and there was some sort of precipitation, or perhaps it was the ocean water being blown out of the ocean and onto the shore. We decided to skip the quarter mile hike to the lighthouse and just walked around the shoreline from where we were. We didn't see any whales this time, but luckily we are close enough to try again another time. From what we've been told this type of weather is rare and it is usually beautiful and clear at Pt. Reyes!