Dillon Beach

In need of a little relief from all our feasting, Meg and I went to class this morning. OilMan and Rick put Ozzie in his den in the back of the car and picked us up after class, and we headed out to the beach.

The Sonoma Coast is hilly open pastureland, barren but not bleak, with widely scattered dairy farms, old weathered barns and grazing cows. This area always reminds me of the brooding hills of the Scottish Highlands, minus the crofts. As we made our way down a windy road to the beach, the fog had not yet cleared, and visibility was poor. We trudged down the beach behind Ozzie, who is always in his element, chasing sticks into the waves, and nosing through mounds of seaweed and kelp. The fishermen were spread out along the waterline, fuzzy outlines in the mist. All they seemed to be catching was seaweed.

We turned around and made our way back toward the car park when we came to the spot where the snowy plovers make their nests right on the ground. The dunes were alive with tiny plover babies, barely visible among the tufts of grass. Soon the fog broke up, revealing patches of brilliant blue sky, and the sun came out to burn away the last wisps of fog. The beach became a different place in the sun. The shrouded silent figures with fishing poles gave way to arriving families, more dogs arrived to frolic in the sea and chase the birds, and the sun brought out the subtle colors of the cliffs and the whitecaps in Tomales Bay.

After a leisurely drive south along the coast we had lunch at Nick's Cove, a seafood restaurant which has been there for decades, the landlocked, peeling boats and long pier leading to a rustic snack bar, belying the upscale menu inside.

We drove back through Sebastopol with a detour past the cows and through the barnyard to the tiny sales counter at the Matos Cheese Factory. Judging from the stacks and bins and truckloads of bread spilling out of the barn, Rick surmised that bread was the diet of the cows. An old Portuguese couple from the Azores make only one kind of cheese here, a farm style cheese called St. Jorge. A partially open door behind the counter revealed shelves and shelves of aging rounds of cheese. Who knew it came, via the cow from day old bread?