Well….. that night didn’t go as planned AT ALL! After I finished journaling, we both got ready for bed. I was in the bedroom and Kaia had the sleeper sofa. All of a sudden she screamed and ran into my room saying that she saw some sort of animal in the room with her. She couldn’t tell if it was a roach, bug, or mouse but it was large and moved fast. OMG! We decided to try to find it. She used her flashlight and looked under the sofa bed and identified it as a mouse. Which…..was probably the least scary option. But still, neither of us wanted to sleep with a mouse in the same room. So we moved all of the food and Kaia’s clothes and basically everything into the bedroom. Then we closed the pocket door and rolled a towel to put along the bottom. We figured if we could keep the mouse out, we could sleep.
The mouse, however, was a determined little guy. He burrowed under the door, over the towel and went running into the bathroom. We screamed!! We both jumped on the bed and watched him dart in and out of the bathroom and hallway. He was out of control and I even peed my pants a little. It was so scary! We decided we could NOT stay in the cabin. We needed to move all the food into the fridge to protect it, then gather our pillows and blankest and go to the car to figure out our next move.
In the car we looked at hotel options but there were really none. We found a couple that were $300+ per night but being that it was already midnight, we didn’t want to do that. Plus this sleepy town clearly shut down early. Even the grocery store closed at 7pm. So…. We put the seats down, pulled our blankets up, and slept in the car. It was surprisingly not as bad as I feared it would be. I “turned over” at 3am and had some trouble getting back to sleep, but then the next time I saw the clock it was 6am!
We ended up moving cabins later in the day, once again unpacking everything and hopefully we will have an uneventful night tonight!
In the morning we ventured to Bowling Ball Beach (Schooner Gulch State Beach) to hit the low tide. We were told that we’d be able to see really cool round rock formations along the shore, but they weren’t there. The hike to the beach was short and really pretty. The beached was really private and super cool with waves washing right up onto the rocks. Kaia and I hiked both directions in our bare feet and just soaked it all in.
Then we headed to a nearby town to do some food shopping and grab some internet since our cabin didn’t have any. I was able to get my billing done and Kaia caught up on social media. Then we headed to the Point Arena lighthouse, but it was fogged in so we took a coastal hike on top of the bluffs and it was spectacular. To one side we had rolling yellow hills of oats and grasses and on the other side we had rocky drop-off cliffs with blue waves below. It was windy (of course) but not horribly cold, so that was nice.
We had dinner in the kitchen of the new-to-us cabin and then headed back to the lighthouse for sunset. It’s literally right behind our hotel, which is amazing! And for once the sun wasn’t setting into a thick line of fog!! It was a big orange ball and so gorgeous! We stood on the cliffs looking down at the lighthouse. Wow! But even better, out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in the water and there were two adorable harbor seals frolicking in the water. We watched them for a good 20 mins — freezing in the wind and setting sun. They splashed and rolled and popped their heads up. It was so fun!!
Now we’re back in the cabin, cozy and watching House Hunters on HGTV and sipping our sleepy tea. Hoping for the best tonight because there are literally no other options.