Tourists in Our Own State!

On Friday, Tim took off work early so we could begin our final quest to explore some parts of California that we may have overlooked as possible places we might like to live. California is soooooo much bigger than I realized living in Sacramento most of my life. I think since I lived in a city that had what I perceived to be everything at the time, I never explored many other areas of the state as I did living in Wyoming. Growing up, we really only went to visit Grandma in San Jose and then went down to So Cal for the typical Disneyland/Newport and Laguna Beach vacation, (which was our favorite) but not much beyond that, (within Ca). I mean, of course we occasionally went to San Francisco, Yosemite three times, Lake Tahoe, Santa Cruz, Napa Valley and Monterey...but not much else beyond the major tourist spots. I still have never been to Big Sur, Hearst Castle, San Luis Obispo, camped ON the beach, climbed Half-Dome, explored the Northern Ca coast like Ukiah and Humbolt County where I'd say to the hippies, "No thanks, I pass on grass-everytime!" Just like "Focker" on Meet the Parents! :)... been to a real ghetto in LA... (ok so I don't want to really go to the ghetto and get shot!) but you get the picture. There is still a lot I would like to do in this state someday. So anywhoo- On Friday we explored some parts of Marin County, mainly the Petaluma area. Petaluma is cool because it is a smaller town, 100,000 people, has a fair amount of open space around it with country living, has a cute old-townie looking downtown area which is pretty small, and is only 45 minutes from the ocean and maybe 45 from SF as well. Oh and it has a Whole Foods. Major points there from me! We had dinner and walked around and took in the sights. It is very hilly which I like, (flat is too boring) and has lots of pretty vineyards around. Afterwards, we drove through Novato-very wealthy town where you have to have at least 2 million to buy a home, San Rafael...then over the Golden Gate Bridge which I think was only my second time driving over and first time with Tim. Unfortunately it was a very foggy evening so we couldn't really take in the sights of the bay and the city, actually we really couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of our car it was so thick! Oh well, so we drove through SF, Burlingame, over the bridge to Hayward, on to Pleasanton, then over some more hills into the central valley/aka: cow towns! :) We finally parked our fun-filled butts at our second home in Turlock for the night with my in-laws. :) Whew! What a day! It was pretty much 5 hours in the car, 3 exploring. It's our whole nomadic phase we are in now I guess. :) So overall we liked Petaluma, but it wasn't calling our name like Oregon is at this time. It still feels too, for lack of a better description, clausterphobic for me. My whole outlook has been swiveled around into a complete 360 change after living in the one state with the most open space. The town itself is smaller, (for CA) and had countryside surrounding it, but too soon after is city after city after city...and I just feel too lost anymore in such environments. It's as if I'll get swallowed up in the crazy city abyss and miss out on the real-ness of the earth, which is nature. The concrete jungle is a little rat-maze leading to nowhere. Just confusion. I'm taking my pink Nalgene bottle and heading for the hills! :)