San Francisco has lots to offer, and I’ll be sad to leave without eating my bread bowl of chowder and cioppino on Fisherman’s Wharf, but we again decided to use our limited time to do something we’d missed on past trips. Punta Reyes National Seashore is just north of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. This ancient home of the coastal Miwok also has interesting maritime and ranching history. The bases of craggy cliffs and rolling hills are pounded by timeless waves. Spanish explorers and merchants later navigated this shoreline, some ending up one of the wrecks that dot the coast. Others transporting goods for gold miners, dairy farmers, and lumbermen. The Point Reyes Lighthouse was built in 1870. It was interesting to read excerpts from the lightkeepers‘ logs. It’s hard to imagine living and raising a family in those days in this windiest, foggiest place on the Pacific Coast. The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1975 when the U.S. Coast Guard installed an automated light and turned over other operations to the National Park Service. Also in the area is a refuge of reintroduced Tule Elk. Depending on when you visit, you can sometimes watch migrating whales and an elephant seal colony. We saw a big harbor seal swimming below the lighthouse, and a few deer. Oh, and there were lots of happy-looking California dairy cows wandering the cliffs as well. Click here for some pictures of this beautiful area.