A little rain never hurt anybody.

I feel like a broken record, but I'm not sure if you've read other pages and posts on this website, so...

In May of this year (2017) I made a really fun Pacific Coast Highway road trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco and back. On the first full day of that trip, I woke up in downtown San Francisco and got out of there as early as I could; there was coastline to explore. My plan was to drive three hours north to around Fort Bragg, CA and explore a few places I had plotted before the trip.

As the trip began, my heart sank a bit. I was driving along the 101 and could not help but notice the sky. Overcast. Shoot. I had in mind a lot of beautifully sunny images from a Pacific Coast Highway road trip, so "what on earth are these clouds doing here?" I think the weather report must have changed. A few weeks prior, I checked the forecast for this very reason, and as far as I can remember, it was supposed to be clear skies. Alas...

I was committed. I already drove from LA to San Fran, and was on my way further north, so I was determined to roll with it. As I headed west on Route 20 towards the coast, overcast clouds turned into drizzle. Then as I arrived at, Russian Gulch State Park , drizzle was full out rainfall. I drove to the welcome/parking kiosk and remember telling the woman at the window, "I'm gonna stick it out." She quickly reassured me that the rain would not be a problem because of the tree canopy above the hiking trail. She was very right.

As I began the hike, I realized that it's always true, "everything happens for a reason," and "all things work together for good." The rain was a gift. It was wonderful. First, it was a welcomed change of atmosphere from Los Angeles. LA can get hot, dry and dusty often, and the moisture of the Central Coast rain was so refreshing. Clean breaths. Secondly, it gave a feeling to my images that they don't often have. Again, LA is beautiful but you're usually getting sunny, sunset, sunlit shots. I've always felt that overcast skies are the best condition to shoot in because they serve as a natural diffuser, softening the light.

Enough of me talking about the weather, here are the images. Russian Gulch State Park is wonderful. I started inside the Park on the Fern Canyon Trail where, again, there was a great canopy and a path that would lead to a 36' waterfall:

The Park continued with a few trails out towards the Pacific Ocean where, wouldn't you know it? The sun came out :) So all of that worry was for naught. Not only did I get a nice refreshing hike in the rain, but I also ended up getting the sun as originally planned. There was an abundance of natural and manmade wonders along the coast. Rock, bluffs, ocean, and a few views of the Frederick W. Panhorst Bridge...you couldn't ask for much more. The entire trip was worth it, just because of this stop: