Staying at the Point Montara Lighthouse Hostel

One of the women in my hostel room (the ranger) has an alarm clock that goes off at 7 am. I can't sleep after that, so I get up and start boiling water to hard-boil an egg I found in the fridge. After noticing the pink stamp on the free egg (which freaks me out...who puts a stamp on an egg!), I decide not to boil or eat it. I eat a Clif protein bar for breakfast and start my hike south of the hostel at 10 am. I hike down the hostel driveway, then I take a right and walk by the Montara Sanitation building. After walking down Vallemar Street, I walk down Juliana Street and Weinke Way to California Avenue. I stop in a grocery store to get something to snack on, but I don't feel like paying those high prices. I walk down California Avenue to its end at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. I use my book to determine that I must walk a bit to the left to find a split-log bridge that I cross and continue on through a wooded trail to Beach Way. After passing the Distillery Restaurant in Moss Beach, I start walking up a road that has road blocks at all its entrance points. It is obvious the road has been patched several times, but it is VERY lumpy and uneven. I guess it is due to either landslides or earthquakes. I consult my book. My book tells me that below the pavement lies an earthquake fault line and the road is slowly sliding into the ocean! Yikes! This road, Ocean Boulevard ends after a bit of precarious walking and I walk up bluff top trails to nearby tracking equipment belonging to the Vandergard Airforce Base. The trails are narrow and mostly steep. I exit on a paved road which I cross and walk a short path to the Pillar Point Harbor. After another mile on residential streets and the beach I come to Prospect Way, where I eat a vegetarian soy burger at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, before leaving to hike a 4.5 mile paved coastal hike trail. Half Moon Bay is beautiful and I consider adding it to my mental list of towns I might want to someday live in. I turn around at 2:25 pm, after 9 miles, having reached just beyond Poplar Street. I hike the same route for a total of 18 miles today. My joints are sore. My feet are tired. I am sweaty and it feels like forever since I have hiked this far. I hike faster on this return trip, because I am very concerned about not finishing the hike by sunset, since all the parks close at sunset and I really want to arrive at the hostel in the daylight. I make it to the hostel at 5 pm, an hour and a half before sunset, only to find that the leftover spaghetti this couple yesterday left for me, has been thrown out. I make Annie's macaroni and cheese and eat the remainder of some guy's Hagan Daaz Honey Bee Vanilla ice cream. He checked out this morning and the hostel employees say the ice cream is up for grabs...yay! I read the paper, update my journal, and pseudo-stretch my sore muscles. I spend an hour sitting in the lawn chairs with Sarah watching the sunset. Another perfect day.

Navigating through a maze of roads leads me to the very edge of the coast.