Saturday, September 27, 2008

Bay Area Road Trip



Today I decided I was going to take a trip around the San Francisco and North Bay Coast. I haven't been around the North Bay coast for years and thought it might be fun to play tourist today. I started out the day (left the house at 6am) taking the dogs to Fort Funston. Boy was it foggy. The tide was low so we had lots of beach to walk on. I walked (dogs ran and ran) for a couple of hours. Once back to the car, I headed out to the north bay. The first stop was at the vista point over the Golden Gate Bridge. You wouldn't believe the difference. There was no fog once I was on the Marin side of the bridge. I was there for about 25 minutes, taking in the sights, taking a few pictures for myself, and taking pictures of the tourists with their cameras. It was really beautiful. There were a lot of people there. But there always are. The next destination was Muir Beach overlook. It is an area hundreds of feet above the coastline. It is beautiful on clear day but equally beautiful when the cloud bank is in. That's what we had today. It looks the same as when you are in an airplane above the clouds. Pretty cool really. There were some open areas where you could see the water. Quite stunning really. Next, I had lunch in Olema. It is a little town along the coast right before you get to Point Reyes National Shoreline. It's claim to fame is that is was at the epicenter of one of the earthquakes (I should know this but don't). I then headed up to Point Reyes. There is a lighthouse at the very tip of lands end. I was hoping to see the whales migrating. When I arrived there were so many folks there I couldn't find a place to park. Even though I didn't make it to the lighthouse, I was still able to overlook the shoreline. I am always amazed at how beautiful this area is. On my way out of the park, I stopped at South Beach (not the Miami one) and took a few more pictures. I really enjoyed the mini road trip. I forget how much there is to see around here.

Above is a little photoshow of some of the things I saw today.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Olema is famous for the 1906 earthquake I think. There used to be a railroad that ran from San Rafael up the east side of Tomales Bay to Olema, Tomales then on to the Russian River at Duncan Mills in those years (1875 to about 1933). In some places there was an earth movement of more than 9 feet from that earthquake as I recall. There are dramatic pictures of the effects of this event. The railroad was called the North Pacific Coast Railroad. Its main cargo was touists and redwood lumber.

Walter

Unknown said...

There are still remnents of this old railroad for those who take notice. For example, the pilings to the north on the west end of the Richmond/San Rafael bridge were the original railroad ferry terminal where the trains departed from. The Freestone Hotel in Freestone and the Union Hotel in Occidental were originally constructed as dormatories/rooming houses for the lunberjacks cutting redwoods for the railroad and wre right on the rail line. The Union Hotel is now an excellent Italian restaurant.

The Oceanside Animals said...

Very picturesque! There are a ton of places to go around here, too, and yet we hardly ever go to them ...

Pam Lambros said...

Walter-You are a wealth of information.

Dennis-you have to get your dad and mom to take you to those fabulous places.

Staci Wittenauer said...

Beautiful pictures and a great slideshow!

Tony said...

Boy it certainly was foggy. I really like the photos taken above the fog looking down

Delilah and Rocket said...

LOVE the slide show. Our mom needs to figure out how do do that.

Pam Lambros said...

Tell your mom it is easy through media center in Microsoft Vista. I would be happy to explain.