First, we stopped by the creamery, which is located in Marin county and unbeknownst to us, also doubles as the Normandy of the US and is world renowned as one of the best cheese making areas in the world. Recently, a local cheese maker of camembert and brie was voted higher than its counterpart French originators. I suppose California has a way of always competing with (and often besting) the French when it comes to its wine and cheese.
Next, we took some of our purchases and randomly found a nearby beach called Chicken Ranch Beach, that shares the Tomales Bay Ecological Reserve, a piece of nature conservation that was protected from factories early on and is home to a considerable amount of local wildlife. There, Louloudi could run along the beach, while Jen and I snacked on some fresh brie, raclette, salami and polished off a bottle of wine.
We made some new friends on the beach who's lovely pitbull took a liking to Louloudi. They were amazed that we would let our dog play with their muscular pitbull, as they were used to being treated as the aggressors at the dog park. Their pitbull was lovely, albeit she did steal the last of the salami from our picnic area when we weren't paying attention. But a small loss in comparison to what I gained, which was a contact that was a CEO of a growing solar company that gave me a number of fantastic names and contacts to get in touch with for possible job opportunities.
After all was said and done, we made our way back home, only to stop for a moment while the sun was setting. Such a beautiful vista and memory of what makes our trips out of the city all the more memorable. We also had a little fun with the new panorama feature of the iPhone. The below picture has no photoshop and is only carefully timed to catch Jen at three different points, as I slowly rotated the camera around. We watched the sun set together and took our tired bodies home across the towering Golden Gate Bridge. A day well spent!
