Travelogue - Bay Area August 2010
| I took a California road trip this summer that took me to Carmel, Monterey, San Francisco and Point Reyes National Seashore. I headed up the 101 and took a scenic route to Carmel so I could stop at some of the Missions along the way. I made a brief stop in San Miguel and took a few photos of the Mission exterior there. I continued on and took a side road towards Jolon to see Mission San Antonio. It’s located on army base Ft. Ligget. It is out of the way but that is part of its charm. It is a nice Mission to visit. I continued on the Jolon Rd until it met back up with the 101 and made another stop at Mission Soledad. This is a very small Mission and one of least interesting of all the Missions I have visited. After visiting I then continued on Carmel Valley Rd through the Carmel Valley which was a nice drive. I arrived in the small town of Carmel Valley Village around 4:30 PM and was famished but none of the restaurants were open. I had to wait until 5 before I could get served. I had a great dinner and continued on to Carmel and had no trouble finding my hotel. |
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I stayed at the Green Lantern Inn which is a B&B just a couple of blocks from Ocean the main downtown drag. The Inn is very nice mostly a bunch of semi separate cottages so things are pretty quiet. My room was very strange though. After entering there is a very small bathroom and some stairs. The stairs are tight and the ceiling is very low. If I stood straight up, I would bump my head going up them and I’m not tall. Anyone over six foot might have a hard time getting in and out or just going downstairs to use the bathroom. Once up the stairs the room was comfortable with a long built in bench running lengthwise the entire side of one wall. I walked around the town a bit and had a couple of beers.
| The next morning I drove south on Hwy 1 only about a mile or 2 to Point Lobos State Preserve. When I paid for entrance ($10 per vehicle), the attendant said that admission was good for 10 days at any park in the state system. I drove in and started hiking around. This is one of the most beautiful coastal areas I have ever seen. It is very diverse in its offerings with rugged coastline, beaches, forests and headlands. There is plenty of wildlife and while I was there saw many birds, deer harbor seals and sea lions. I spent most of the day hiking as many trails as I could. I went back to Carmel and had a good dinner at a place called A. W. Shucks that specializes in oysters and other seafood. |
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| The next morning I drove north a few miles to Monterey and visited the spectacular aquarium. I spent several hours there going through all of the exhibits and taking many photos of the beautiful creatures there. After the aquarium, I took a free trolley to downtown and did the historical walking tour. Many of the buildings are closed because of budget cuts, but Monterey is a nice city to walk around. I drove back to Carmel and had dinner at a Spanish style tapas restaurant that I had spotted the day before. The food was good and they had real Spanish beer which is something I have never seen in the US before, but even better was an old man named Peter Evans playing flamenco and classical guitar. He was truly spectacular and I bought a CD from him. |
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| The next day I headed north towards San Francisco up the 101 but
I took a side trip to San Juan Bautista to see the mission there.
The small town there is very quaint and pretty old with a nice main
street and a small state park that has some old 19th
century buildings across a large lawn from the Mission. The Mission
itself is very beautiful and pretty big. It is the only mission with
3 aisles in the church and it also has a great altar with several
statues set into separate alcoves. Its remoteness together with the
nice little town makes this a nice side trip. I diverted from the 101 and took a more scenic route up the 280 to San Francisco. This is a decent drive that is nicer than the 101. I cruised into the city and had no trouble locating my hotel which was the Columbus Motor Inn. This just a basic motel that is nicely located on Columbus just a few blocks from the wharf area in North Beach. I walked straight up Columbus and got something to eat at one of the many Italian restaurants. It was unusually hot so I found a good seat on the sidewalk. It was too hot to go inside most places. After dinner, I kept going up Columbus to my favorite SF bar Vesuvio next door the City Lights bookstore. I had many beers (Anchor Steam of course) there and some delightful conversation with another tourist sitting next to me. |
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| I was a bit hung over the next morning but I motivated to the bus to get to Golden Gate Park. This was a little tricky as the transfer bus (28) near Lombard and Laguna didn’t have an actual bus stop. I had some trouble finding it and asked a gas station attendant where the bus stops and he said right on the corner on Laguna. I went there and there were others waiting and I asked them what they were waiting for and they were waiting for the same bus but there was nothing to mark it as a stop. The people I talked to were at a stop across the street going in the opposite direction and the driver said to wait on the corner where we were. Whatever, but soon I was on my way to GG park. |
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| Once in the park, I made my way to the Academy of Sciences. This is a fantastic museum that contains an aquarium, a rainforest bio dome, a planetarium, the living roof and numerous other natural history exhibits. I went downstairs to the aquarium and while it isn’t like the one in Monterey it is still good. The bio dome is very interesting. It is an enclosed glass globe and you wind your way up it viewing the rainforest from top to bottom. All the while birds and butterflies are flittering about all over the place. There is a large pond at the bottom that you can also view from underneath in the aquarium. |
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| After visiting other exhibits, I left the museum and went over to the old Conservatory of Flowers. This is a big greenhouse that has a lot of exotic plants. I continued wandering around the park and made my way to the lake. I left the park and took a bus down Fulton and Market Sts. to Grant and walked back towards North Beach through Chinatown. I stopped into City Lights and bought a couple of books. There is always something interesting to be had in City Lights. |
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I left early the next morning and continued to drive north. I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and went up the 1 which was much windier than I thought it would be. I took a side trip to Muir Woods and hiked a few miles. Muir Woods is a beautiful park and well worth hiking around. I got back on the 1 and passed through Stinson Beach. I didn’t stop but it is a nice little beach town. Soon I was looking across the Bolinas Lagoon and wondering how to get to Bolinas. I came to the end of the lagoon and there was one road going back the other way on the peninsula. This had to be it. The residents of Bolinas are private people and they remove any signs pointing the way to Bolinas. I headed down the road which eventually tees off and again no signage tells which way to the town. I figured it out and got to the town which is no more than ten buildings if that. There is one restaurant, one bar and a couple of other businesses and galleries and that’s it. I had a great fried oyster lunch and continued back up the 1. |
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I stopped at the Bear Valley Visitor’s Center and had a short look around there. There is a Morgan Horse ranch but it only had 3 horses there at the moment and was not too interesting. I continued north and passed through Olema and then found my hotel in Inverness. I stayed at the Motel Inverness which was nicer than most standard motels. It is nicely located right on Tomales Bay. It has a very nice common area with a pool table and comfortable seating and many guests gather there and talk about their experiences. The managers were very helpful, friendly and informed about the area and are ready to give advice on where to go, what to see and where to eat. Inverness has 1 store that makes deli sandwiches, 2 restaurants and not much else. There is 1 other restaurant up the street at the Tomales Bay Resort and a couple more down the street in another little ‘town’ called Inverness Park. |
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My room wasn’t quite ready so I kept driving on Sir Francis Drake Blvd. all the way to the end at the Point Reyes Lighthouse. The drive was extremely beautiful with rolling hills and grasslands everywhere. Open vistas looking over rugged cliffs or into peaceful estuaries plus cattle ranches every few miles that have all been there since the mid 1800’s. I got to the lighthouse and walked the 300 something steps down to it and it was very interesting and very scenic though very foggy as usual. I ate dinner at the Czech restaurant called Vladamir’s. They have Pilsner Urquell on tap and I had a good Klobasa sandwich.
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I got a somewhat early start the next morning to go hiking, but I wanted to stop at the store and get a sandwich to take with me. However the store didn’t open until 9AM. All was not lost because behind the store is the iconic shipwreck that everyone has to take photos of in Point Reyes. I’m no exception to this rule so I took a few very nice shots of it. I went back to my hotel and had a cup of tea waiting for the clock to strike 9. I went back the store, got my sandwich and headed down Sir Frances Drake Blvd and turned down Pierce Point Rd. and took to the end at the abandoned Pierce Point Ranch. At the ranch is the Tomales Point trailhead. When I got there, there was only one other person preparing to hike. He took off and followed shortly. I didn’t see another person for hours. |
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Almost immediately after hitting the trail, there were elk everywhere and the males were bugling constantly. I walked 5 miles all the way to the end of the point. The last bit is difficult because the trail disappears and you have to make your own way through the dense brush trying to follow paths that others have made. Coming back was the same and I lost the trail completely and somehow veered towards the coast and walked across a large open meadow that was covered in elk pies. I think this saved me a lot of bushwhacking though and soon I was able to see a group of trees that I knew the trail passed by. I got to the trees and back on the trail with no trouble. I walked the 5 miles back to the ranch and took a few photos around the abandoned buildings and cruised back to Inverness. |
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The next day I drove few miles to Point Reyes Station which is a very small town but bigger than the others in the immediate area. As I was walking around the small farmers market that was set up, I saw a photographer’s studio across the street. I went in to look around and as soon as I did, several other photographers walked in and one of them was Ken Rockwell known to many photographers because of his kenrockwell.com website. It was a pleasure to meet him and we spent some time talking together with the owner of the studio.
I then drove around a bit to the end of Limantour Rd. and hiked around there a bit. I came back and again went down SFD Blvd. on my way to Tomales Bay State Park. I had paid for entrance at Point Lobos and was under the impression that I could get into TBSP for free. Wrong! There is no such thing in the state park system. Unless you buy one of their yearly passes (which does not include entrance to Point Lobos and other places) you must pay separate fees at each destination. The guy at Point Lobos was misinformed. I didn’t go in but instead went to Drakes Estero and took a short hike there.
Later I went back to Point Reyes Station for dinner and ate at the Station House Café. I had some oysters there along with some other cooked food and it was all delicious. About an hour after I got back to my hotel, I got the worst food poisoning I have had in some 20 years. It was a rough night. I got very little sleep and had to wait until 9 the next morning to get to the store and get some Pepto Bismol for the ride home. I rested until checkout time (11) drank some Pepto and took off for home. The Pepto did the trick and I didn’t have any cramping until I got home some eight and half hours later.