The Longer Route
28 Days of Asking: Day 19
We started with breakfast in bed again. It’s becoming a thing (two days in a row).
Then out to Jack London State Park. I knew his books: Call of the Wild, White Fang, but not much else. Turns out the man was obsessed with farming. Built a whole life out here in Sonoma. Died young, at 40, still building.
The land felt gritty. Not polished or preserved for tourists. Just honest. We hiked two and a half miles to London Lake around his old cottage and farmland, imagining what it took to carve something out of this soil a hundred years ago.
After that, an olive oil tasting. Educational and interesting. I was hoping for a bit more on the history and science of farming olives. It was more about the industry as a whole and the individual olive farm. Then we hit lunch at El Molino; authentic, unhurried. The Dungeness crab tostada was the treat. The kind of dish you close your eyes for.
We had a choice to make for the afternoon. The hotel spa or the longer hike we’d skipped that morning. I checked out the spa. Nothing special. And we probably weren’t coming back to this park again.
So we chose the hike. Three and a half miles to an Ancient Redwood tucked away at the end of the trail.
The tree was 2,000 years old. Easily one of the most magical things I’ve ever seen. The size. The shape. The way the branches swallowed the sky. We couldn’t even see the top. Just stood there looking up, necks craned, trying to take in something that doesn’t fit inside a frame.
Day 19: What’s worth going out of the way for?
We could have done the spa. It was easier. Closer. Already paid for. But we would have missed the tree.
I think about this a lot. The things I almost skip because they take more effort. The detours I talk myself out of because the default is simpler.
But the default rarely leaves me standing in front of something 2,000 years old, wondering how many people have stood in that tree’s shadow, feeling small in the best possible way.
Some things are worth the extra miles. The longer route. The choice that doesn’t make sense on paper but makes perfect sense in your chest.
For you, what’s worth going out of the way for?
Not everything is. That’s the point. But some things are. And the only way to find them is to leave the easy path once in a while.
What are you almost skipping that might be the thing you remember?
We’re back at the hotel now. Epsom salt bath. Wine. Snacks. The good trip continues.
