Veteran's Day Beach Hike

The kids were off school for Veteran's Day, and we decided to hike to the tide pools at Hearst Beach. Hikes are always better with Dave, but he had to work. We sure missed him, especially when things got exciting later on!

Chloe loves her Bearkitten Preschool sweatshirt. We bought it for Spencer 11 years ago, and all the boys have worn it! She did great on the hike.

The kids packed everything they thought they would need for the day, which was funny to me because they had goggles and snorkel equipment. They never needed them, but it's better to be over-prepared. 

 Funky fungus!

This is a great hike because it has a lovely view of the ocean for a good bit of it. Then we took a big shortcut (my idea) through the woods to the other side of the peninsula. We found ourselves hiking a cow path (a fact that was apparent by the plethora of cow pies), and we joked that it was the cow highway the cows took to work everyday. We imagined them living secret lives when no one was watching.

But then we got to the edge of the woods and came to a big clearing where, lo and behold, there was a huge herd of cows. There was no fence between us and them, and they were huge. We had to walk right past them to get to the tide pools down below. The females and calves didn't seem too interested in us, but the bulls were staring right at us. I could almost see their nostrils flaring. Someone suggested Brennan remove his red jacket. The situation frightened Levi to death. We're talking sobbing, paralyzing fear. We didn't know what to do. We had come so far and hated to just turn back. We said a prayer and hoped for the best. We kept as far away as we could, but there was a sheer cliff and ocean to the left of us, so we couldn't go too far. Chloe, on the other hand, wanted one for a pet, "in our house." 

As soon as it leveled off a little on our left, we started to climb down and scale the side of the cliff. We assured Levi we were safe now. Surely the cows couldn't climb down that far. Later someone thought they saw a cow pie down there, but I insisted they not tell Levi. 

Levi and Chloe needed a lot of help climbing down. The big kids were a huge help.

 The cows continued to keep a close eye on us! 

Whew! We made it safely to the beach. You can see where we exited the woods and scaled the jaggedy rocks down to the sand.

This is such a fun beach! It's totally secluded, and there are awesome rock formations and tide pools

Spencer found this cool crab. I love the red color! 

What an adventure! The cows were gone by the time we hiked back, so that was a huge relief. 

The hike was longer than we remembered (even with the shortcut), so we got back pretty late. The kids sure had some stories to tell dad when we got home!