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....