If you’ve been reading my Memory Monday posts for awhile, you may recall seeing more than a few images from our trips to the Sonoma coast dating back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. At times it seemed we were making the 3-hour drive every other weekend or so. But at some point we realized that, thanks to busy work schedules, laziness, and other factors, it had been a few years since we’d been on an ocean fishing trip. When we finally returned, a lot of the scenery had changed, and we had to start all over again finding the best spots for shore fishing along the cliffs around Salt Point.

December 2017; traffic signs make great landmarks

And very often the beautiful scenery up and down Highway 1 tends to blend together, with coastal forests and winding roads making it tough to recall where you parked beside the road and hiked to the water. The area around Gerstle Cove is a great example. The last time the Big Guy explored this area, he failed to find his way through the trees to the ocean.

But on our most recent trip, we parked in the same spot as in 2017 and this time hiked north rather than south — and we found Gerstle Cove! On the way to the rocky cliffs, we also found some absolutely breathtaking coastal forest.