Travelogues
2014 Bay Area

Sunday, April 27

 

Marin Headlands

Today was a little more like our traditional vacations. Our plan was to find two lighthouses, shoot the rugged California coast, and end the day shooting sunset near the Golden Gate Bridge. The big difference was that Brian did all the driving, and we could just sit back and enjoy the scenery. That was a very rare treat.

The first stop was Sausalito. That is one crazy city. Brian drove us up a back street to see the incredible houses hanging off the cliffs. They were unbelievable! Some of the garages were basically free-standing with steel frameworks supporting them from the hillsides below. All the houses seemed to have dramatic views across the bay to San Francisco. I had to include the image below of the "2bella" shop in honor of Carol's great-niece Bella.

Sausalito 2bella
Sausalito 2bella

Just around the corner from Sausalito was Ft. Baker and the Presideo Yacht Club. The breakwater for Horseshoe BayGoogleEarth View provided a close-up view of the Golden Gate Bridge from water level on the Sausalito end. We saw huge container ships entering the bay on the way to the Oakland harbor. We walked along a bike path as close as we could get to the base of the Golden Gate and gained a whole new appreciation for the enormity of the bridge. We also saw several families of Canadian geese with young goslings as we walked back to the car.

Golden Gate Bridge Presideo Yacht Club Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge Presideo Yacht Club Golden Gate Bridge

From Ft. Baker, we drove north to Point Reyes to check out the lighthouse. We had hoped to see Muir Woods and Mt. Tamalpais, but even at mid-morning all the parking lots were full. Since we had seen Sequoias at Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks many times, we decided to skip Muir Woods.

Pt. Reyes LighthouseThe road to Point Reyes was narrow and seemed to be designed to see how much paving material could be used if you had the maximum number of curves to reach a destination. I was very thankful that I wasn't driving.

The Point Reyes LighthouseGoogleEarth View was pretty anticlimactic. It looks small at the bottom of the 300 steps required to reach the lighthouse. There were lots of wildflowers blooming along the trails to the lighthouse, but we hadn't brought macro lenses to photograph them. The Pacific Coast iris were nearing their peak in many areas. The ones in this area had a wider, shinier leaf than most we've seen in the past. When we got back to the car, we decided to skip the rest of Pt. Reyes and start heading south. The afternoon was getting away from us.

Our next major stop was the Point Bonita Lighthouse. I knew we wanted to shoot it from Bird Island Overlook, but we couldn't find any roads to take us there. I could see the parking lot in Google Earth as I planned for the trip, but I couldn't see how to get there today. After several failed attempts, we finally realized that we had to park in the lot for the lighthouse and then hike along the bluffs to Bird Island Overlook.GoogleEarth View The road and parking lot had been blocked off. The shot of the lighthouse with the late afternoon sun lighting it made the search worthwhile. The guide books said it's rare to have a day clear enough to photograph the lighthouse, so we felt pretty lucky.

Pt. Bonita Lighthouse Golden Gate Bridge Golden Gate Bridge
Pt. Bonita Lighthouse Golden Gate Bridge Golden Gate Bridge

Our final stop was to shoot sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge with San Francisco in the background from the Marin Headlands. We had hoped for Hawk Hill or Battery Spencer. Since half of San Francisco had the same idea for a Sunday afternoon drive, we were lucky to find a turnoutGoogleEarth View about halfway between Hawk Hill and Battery Spencer to shoot the Golden Gate. If we would have had a little more time before the sun dropped below the hills, we could have walked down to Battery Spencer. On this day, the sun was faster than we were.

By this point, we were exhausted. When we got back to Walnut Creek, we ate dinner at the China Palace. We felt right at home. It was very much like our Chopsticks Inn at home. It was family-run and the food was great. We each had a different entree, and all of them were excellent.