This year we have the week off for Thanksgiving and the north coast is calling.

After looking into many options I settled on a pad with a sunroom with amazing views on the Sonoma Coast between Bodega Bay and Jenner (the end of the Russian River).

This would give me the time to slow down and sketch an area which I had mainly driven through. Now I would put boots to dirt and sketch history, nature, and amazing coastal views.

That’s if my knee didn’t feel better. I’m at the age where I wake up with a new pain. First it was the left elbow and now the right. I woke up Saturday with pain in my left knee. How this happened I do not know. Perhaps I shouldn’t have played soccer with my students on Free Friday. Was it the left footed shot from the left wing? Yes I scored! Was it almost worth scoring against nine year olds? Maybe.

I made four pre-trip sketches, some are included in this post.

To help visualize the path of the San Andreas Fault through the land I would be traveling, I sketched it out on a map. At the bottom I drew from a famous photo of a train put on its side by the San Francisco Earthquake. It was taken about 30 miles away from the epicenter, near San Francisco, in the town of Point Reyes Station.