Skip to main content

No Place to Stay in San Francisco

Friday, June 17th – Memorial County Park to Willits, California - Day 126 

The beauty of the campsite was even more apparent in the morning. Huge red wood trees everywhere. We were on a hill that stretched up and down to a washroom. We filled up our water bottles, showered, and the kids spent time playing amongst the trees. The best part about the park was that it was almost empty. We were alone in our section of the campsite. With great reluctance we got in the car and drove off. 


We stopped in the campsite to get one more picture and so I could take it all in once more. We went back to the coast and travelled north before heading inland towards San Francisco. 


We wanted to find a campsite and drop off the trailer. No way were we dragging a trailer through the steep hills of San Francisco. We had phoned Mount Tamalpais State Park in the hills north of the bay and they had availability. We drove over the Golden Gate bridge and shortly reached an exit that led to a very hilly, very curvy road up Mount Tamalpais. We arrived to find out that they were a tent only facility, something they neglected to mention over the phone. Disappointed, we turned around. 


 To turn lemons into lemonade, we had seen an exit to Muir Woods National Monument, a destination of interest, we travelled down the very hilly, very curvy road to Muir Woods. There was very expensive parking at the monument, so I dropped off everyone and went to turn around at the bottom of the hill. After waiting a bit, I went back to pick them up. They had gone to the visitor centre and taken a bit of a walk through the grove of red woods. Back up the hilly, curvy road and on our way to San Francisco. 


 The Golden Gate Bridge visitor parking provided a scenic viewpoint and a path to the edge of the harbour. There was Fort Point, a National Historic Site, which was almost directly below the bridge. It was a historically useless fort; as soon as they built it, opposing weaponry got better and it would have been taken out. They were going to destroy it but the head architect of the Golden State bridge came in before they wrecked it and thought it was nice enough to keep. We did the junior ranger program and had a great talk with a ranger who talked about people with disabilities that helped the National Park system. We found a free parking lot to ditch the trailer nearby and were off to the city centre. 

To be continued....

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mary in Malibu

Tuesday, June 7th - Angeles Mountains, Los Angeles to Santa Monica Mountains, Malibu, California - Day 117  It is great to welcome Mary back on the trip. The kids gave her a huge hug as we picked her up at the airport. They are all really excited to talk to someone other than their parents.   We are all driving to our wedding on June 25th. Sixteen days until we need to be in Victoria, British Columbia. Our plan was to drive up the coast from Los Angeles, halfway to San Fran cut inland to Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park (which is close by) and then head north to Yosemite, before driving back down to Big Sur and then into San Francisco, potentially north east to Lake Tahoe and north to Redwoods National Park. It’s a busy schedule, we’ll see how it goes.  On the way to pick up Mary we got a well-deserved oil change for the Santa Fe, courtesy of Valvoline. It was expensive but quick and easy. We were thinking of driving throu...

Back to the Coast

Tuesday, June 14th - Sacramento to Big Sur State Park, California - Day 123  In the morning, we got on the road and drove along the Sacramento river which watered acres and acres of fields on all sides of us. We took a scenic drive before getting on the highway. A brief stop at Walmart and Dollar tree replenished our supplies.   We phoned Big Sur State Park to try to get a spot for the night. They had nine spots available, we were three hours away, we needed to hurry. When we finally reached the coast, we drove along a curvy cliffside road that was very beautiful. Views of waves crashing into the rocks on the coastline below were exquisite. Gen was behind the wheel. There were no passing lanes, she finally found a spot to pull off the road and subsequently had several minutes of vehicles continuing to pass us before we could get back on.   We finally reached Big Sur State Park and were welcomed with a grove of Red Woods towering over the drive into...

Sand Sledding on White Dunes - More Photos