Sonoma coast

My wife and I went to the Sonoma Coast on November 11 to celebrate my birthday. We stayed at the Seacliff Lodge which is on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

This is the Point Arena lighthouse, which was built in 1870, destroyed by an earthquake in April 1906 and rebuilt and resumed operation in 1908, 18 months after the earthquake. It was the first lighthouse to be built using reinforced concrete and was built by a company that built factory smokestacks. The lighthouse stands 115 feet tall.

This is looking up from the base of the lighthouse at the 133 steps I climbed to get to the top.


This is a 1st order Fresnel lens. It is 6 feet in diameter and weighs over 6 tons. It is composed of 666 hand-ground glass prisms which were carried up the steps one piece at a time! Everything else was brought up with a winch. More history of the lighthouse can be found at www.mcn.org/1/palight/about.html

Waves alongside the lighthouse.

The view from the top of the lighthouse.

These signs were seen on a cafe on the way to and from the lighthouse.

This was the scene outside of our motel.

Sunset at the end of a beautiful day from our motel room window.