Day Eight: the Last Day

Oh the last day.

We are going to miss this little cabin in the woods.

The dutch door.
The big windows opened wide to let in the sunshine and smell of pine needles.

The quail and the woodpeckers that visited our front yard every day.

It was a lovely get away. It was just what we wanted, just what we needed and it has given us a whole lot of new memories of our first vacation as a family of 5!

There was one more stop before we headed south down the freeway. We took a smaller, much more beautiful road out to buy some pie.

Santa Rosa Creek road in Cambria is one of my favorites. There are places where, when I close my eyes to see them, I feel happy, calm, and even miss them a bit. This road is like that. In two minutes you are away from bustling (ha) Cambria and in the sleepy countryside. Truly, there are cows grazing, vineyards and farms, a creek, sweeping views across the valley to rocky hills and it is all just beautiful. I would like to live in that valley. I dream of it, actually.

Towards the end of the road, there is a little farm store, Lin's fruit bin. There is a house, just asking you to step onto the front porch and rock in the red rocking chair, a creek for little boys to play in, a peacock wandering around, hummingbirds and butterflies. In the store, you can buy every kind of delicious jam you can imagine, but I recommend the ollalieberrry. I also recommend you get a pie. These pies are so very, very good. The ollalieberry is fantastic. So is the raspberry rhubarb.

They gave the boys cookies for the road.

It was a good last stop.

And then, we were on our way.

We said goodbye to this:

And hello to this:
Ahh, nothing like LA traffic to bring you back to reality with a thump.

It is always sad for a trip to end. I even feel a little bit sad as I write this. But, there will be more trips. And, no matter where we are, the making of happy memories is up to us.

The first happy memory was getting those kids out of the car and into our house!