Summer and Winter in the Redwoods

 Here on the Redwood Coast, water is a given.  There is the pacific and the wild rivers and the redwood trees need 5 00 gallons of water a day, most absorbed from the fog.  Winter rain comes hard and brutally with winds in excess of 110 miles and blasts of hail, but the summers are deliciously warm and inviting without becoming scorchers.

 We go to the rivers to fish and swim and kayak much more to the ocean.  The rivers are warmer and at the beach, there is clouds and fog except when it is blown away by sandblasting wind.  Oh, sure, there are soft, easy days at the beach that fool the tourists into moving here, but the locals know they are an illusion and if you can stand a solar free zone is the only way you will ever be happy here long term.

 The previous pictures are all summer, the ones which follow are from January, when we got 8 inches of rain in two days and are bracing for more

 This picture shows the same spot, and the same giant rock as the sunny shot where people play on the gravel beach up above

So winter is green here, and grey and unlike the whited out world many of you experience.  We rarely scrape snow from the sidewalks, and seldom have frosty windows, but there are months of rain, and the sun becomes a faint memory.  I need to lock myself to my computer and write, but even in the stormy drama, it is wonderful to get out in a landscape with so much beauty.