David Hilgier Photographs

Highway 1 and the Sonoma County Beaches to our left. The rolling hills of Northern California to our right.

The morning fog receded back out over the ocean as we arrived at Highway 1 and the Northern California coast.

The backroads northwest of Petaluma greeted us with golden fields dotted green foliage under a brilliant blue summer afternoon sky. The smell of the ocean faintly discernible as we made our way to the coast.

After a day of exploring, we spent an evening relaxing in my Aunt’s garden. A perfect spot to enjoy good libations and conversations.

When I was a kid, I remember camping trips where my Mom would hang a hummingbird feeder near our sites. You’d hear their chirping through the pine trees long before you’d get a glimpse of them. It still is hard not to be fascinated by how they can appear to float in midair.

In center of this town an hour or so north of San Francisco, old buildings still remain, repurposed as antique shops, boutique stores and eateries.

For some, a strip of photographs produced in two minutes commemorating their visit to the brewery was too long to wait for.

We arrived to Petaluma in the middle of the night. Familiar keepsakes greeted us like old friends.

Every trip starts with a photo at the airport of some representation of the plane I’m about to board. Or the first view out the window. A marker of what is to come. We departed Denver as the sunset through the haze of smoke generated by the summer’s wildfires in the West.

The brief moments between day’s transition to night. Sunlight yields to tungsten, fluorescent, LED, and neon light. In this case a sign signifying the location of a laundry service flicks on as the quintessential Colorado summer evening clouds roll by. A business that has closed shop for the night hours earlier still feeling the need to proclaim their their presence as the night takes over.