California Icons

There’s a particular kind of anticipation that builds in the weeks before a trip. The kind where you’ve memorized the map but haven’t yet felt the dirt beneath your boots. That’s exactly where I am right now. Bags half-packed, itinerary printed, heart already somewhere between Big Sur and the redwoods.

I’ve been a nurse for nine years now, so I know what it means to run on empty. I also know what it feels like to finally stop running and let something else carry you for a while. This trip is that reset. Fourteen days. The full California stretch, coast to mountains to forest to city.

“The mountains are calling and I must go.”

I’ve never felt that more literally than I do right now!

We’re starting in Monterey, tracing the coastline south into Big Sur. Bixby Creek Bridge, McWay Falls spilling into a quiet cove, Garrapata Bluff with the Pacific stretched endlessly below. Places I’ve only seen in photographs are about to feel real under my feet.

Then we turn inland to Yosemite, arriving in late April when the waterfalls are running strong, and the valley is just waking from winter. Snowmelt rushing over cliffs, mist hanging in the air, the first signs of spring pushing through. Three full days. Enough time to slow down. Enough time to breathe. Enough time to take it all in without rushing past it.

From Yosemite, we head north to the Mendocino Coast, where I’ve booked a kayak on the Big River Estuary. A quiet morning paddling through the fog, with otters and herons nearby… trading noise for stillness.

Then it’s into the redwoods. Fern Canyon. Prairie Creek. The Avenue of the Giants. Forests so old and towering that they make you feel small in the best possible way, where the air is cool and quiet, and everything slows down without you even trying.

We finish in San Francisco, with Muir Woods, Alcatraz, and a stop in Sonoma for a private tasting at Viansa Winery. A proper ending to fourteen days of moving, seeing, and remembering what it feels like to be fully present.

I’ll be sharing the entire journey here and on social media as it unfolds. Not just the highlights, but the in-between moments too. What it feels like to finally slow down, to breathe deeper, and to remember who you are when you’re not running from one shift to the next.

Follow along here and on social media as the journey unfolds...

See you on the trail

-The Nurse Hiker