After two months in the Bay Area, Magic and I are cleaning up and getting ready to hit the road again. It’s been a long time since we towed; it’s about two days of work to get everything ready. (Mainly cleaning things up and putting them away — lots of clutter has built up since we parked..) And also, had to do the obligatory farewell dinner with two of my good friends, Chris and Alex:
We’ll also be doing a three-day stint with no hookups from Thursday-Sunday. Not a big deal for water, but I’m not sure the engine will be running enough to keep the batteries charged. Makes me wish I had made the investment in a generator or solar — though probably not worth the money at this point. Maybe next year.
While I will miss the redwoods, great hiking trails, living next to a stream, and the friendly staff at Saratoga Springs, staying in one place for too long sortof defeats the purpose of airstreaming in the first place. Lesson learned – one month stints are the new rule, unless there is some very compelling reason to do otherwise..
530pm departure for Chico. See you out there.
Travel Heaven
These photos don’t really need much explanation. The view from the Marin headlands is .. great.
(To get here, go north over the bridge, take the first exist past the tourist parking thing, and make a left at the bottom of the ramp to go under the highway — go all the way up)
Randomness
After checking out of the Hotel Monaco on Sunday (and not getting caught breaking the “dogs are not allowed to be unattended in rooms” policy), we cruised around the city for awhile and ended up at Golden Gate Park. Golden Gate Park is the largest man-made park in the country, and the third-most visited park in the country after Central Park (NYC) and Lincoln Park (CHI). This was more impressive until I realized that it’s only 174 acres larger than Central Park, which itself is about 1000ac.
Anyway, Golden Gate Park is a lot more calm and enjoyable than Central Park — less cars, less people, more nature. It also contains a small herd of Bison (?!) among other things. We had lunch at some BBQ joint at a golf pro shop, which was decent though not particularly memorable.
We later drove through Haight-Ashbury, which was a cool neighborhood that reminded me St. Marks in the east village, though more laid back. Neglected to take any pictures of that, though.
NorCal
It’s been almost four months since I’ve been in a place where I could fall out my door and have hundreds of destinations in walking distance. Makes me miss new york a little bit.
Consulting the various beer resources I’ve used over the years, I found recommendations for what appeared to be the top beer snob destinations in SF. That list included Zeitgeist, Monk’s Kettle, 21st Amendment, Magnolia Pub, and some other places that I obviously didn’t go to. In fact, given that it was raining AGAIN, we only made it to the first two places on the list. Plus a wine bar called Cav for dinner.
I forgot to take pictures of Cav and Zeitgeist, and also the historic streetcar (which was incredibly cool, they run a number of different international, historic streetcars on many of the train lines). Cav was like a new york style wine bar with great wine and food (made me nostalgic for NY again); Zeitgeist was like a biker bar with bicycles instead of harleys and hipsters instead of hells angels. Zeitgeist had a fantastic beer selection — I had a few beers from Oregon that I’d never had before, making me very excited about my stint in Eugene and Portland coming up next week.
After all that was Monk’s Kettle, which is my new favorite place in norcal. Amazing beer selection, great atmosphere, etc. A bit crowded, but whatever. All of the pictures below are from there.
Randomness
After bumming around Union Square for awhile (and eating at a great deli, which I can’t recall.. dave’s or something?), we took the cable car down to the wharf and did touristy things. Ate free chocolate, took pictures of Alcatraz, went to some art galleries, and checked out the Sea Lions at Pier 39.
Apparently it’s a well-known fact that I never heard before – a bunch of sea lions took over many of the boat slips here, and hang out there almost all the time. It was really amazing and totally out of place. Like an accidental zoo.
NorCal
Magic and I spent the weekend in San Francisco. Figured in two months in the bay area, I should probably spend a little more time getting to know the city. It’s tough being well over an hour away, though, especially with the dog — so I found a pet friendly hotel (Hotel Monaco near Union Sq) and made a weekend of it.
It was interesting being back in a city — city dog was certainly back in his element for awhile and settled right back into the sidewalks and busy streets. I never quite understood the vibe of SF. Lots of people raved about it, but I never quite got it. I’m still not sure I get it, but it was definitely fun, and I need to check out more.
This first group of photos is mostly the area around Union Square, riding a cable car down to the Fisherman’s Wharf.
Randomness
Hard to believe that the end of my Bay Area stint is already in sight. In two weeks I head north, stopping by TransferFlow in Chico, CA to have a larger fuel tank installed on the truck (the 300mi range is a disgrace), then to Eugene, OR for some minor airstream repairs, then to Portland to see a friend who I haven’t seen in 20 years, and finally Seattle for a few weeks.
It occurred to me today while I was driving that I’ve become totally used to driving the truck around with no load — going to be interesting hooking up again and having to pay attention to wide turns..
Going to do some touring in SF this weekend; hopefully more photos coming soon.
Randomness
Hakone Gardens (www.hakone.com) is the oldest Japanese garden in the Western Hemisphere (94 years old!) and is a National Trust for Historic Preservation landmark (not sure what that is, but sounds important). It’s a replica of a Japanese Samurai Garden, and also happens to be about a 5 minute drive from Saratoga Springs. After driving by it every day for almost a month, I figured I should at least check it out before I left.
After driving up the steepest hill blacktruck has ever seen, I paid my $5 fee and roamed around the gardens for a couple of hours. Lots to see, very impressive, very zen, very difficult to capture in pictures. But I tried, there are about 40 here below. I’d imagine that when things are actually in bloom it would be much more scenic, but it was still good stuff.
I’d imagine that when this was built nearly 100 years ago, the mountainside location would’ve been an incredible retreat, far away from whatever city life goings-on and noise and whatnot. Unfortunately, any possibility of calm is ruined by the never-ending screams of the Loud Pipes Save Lives motorcyclists on their way out toward Skyline Drive. I love motorcycles 99% of the time, but it definitely messed with the whole mood they’re going for.
Anyway, definitely recommended if you’re in the area.
NorCal
Blackdog and I took advantage of a break in the rain to do another hike near the campground. We hit the John Nicholas Trail, which starts at the end of Sanborn Road, a few miles past the Sanborn County Park entrance. Given our experience with the other (unnamed) Sanborn trail, I wasn’t sure what to expect, so I put the big hiking boots on and packed for several hours of hiking.
As it turned out, the John Nicholas Trail is a pretty easy hike through a redwood forest and around the Lake Ranch Reservoir. It starts out with a pretty long climb, but after that it’s a leisurely hike on a dirt road for about 2 1/2 miles to the far end.
NorCal
Magic and I took advantage of a brief break in the weather and did some hiking yesterday. We used the trailhead on Sanborn Road just off of Big Basin Way, and hiked as far in as the trail took us — it was about a 3 1/2 hour hike. Had I been alone, I probably could’ve done it in an hour or less, but we had a little problem: Magic hates water. And the trail crosses the stream. About ten times.
Yes, I had to repeatedly carry my 80 pound, bronx-bred pit bull across 6″ of water due to his supreme daintiness.
Unfortunately most of my photos didn’t come out well, and the ones that did don’t do justice to the comedy of our journey (I forgot to mention – we lost the trail at some point and decided to climb down a hill, which turned out to be incredibly steep and had tons of loose dirt. We basically slid down a 100′ near vertical drop). The photos also don’t really capture the amazing scenery here. Redwoods, meandering streams, lots of old growth, mosses, birds.. not really point & shoot territory, but if I had been carrying my SLR, it probably would’ve been destroyed/waterlogged/crushed.
Anyway, we had a great time — magic was so tired when we got back he went to sleep for.. well, he’s still recovering a day later.
NorCal
