Golden Gate

We awoke the next morning at the hostel and headed down for breakfast.  The hostel system, as we noted before, models its business plan hoping to allow people to experience different cultures and people affordably while caring for the earth.  They displayed this pursuit at breakfast, where all the dishes got cleaned by the person who dirtied them, and food scraps got placed in compost bins.  We felt right at home next to people from all across the world, perhaps the sole representatives of the U.S. in the vicinity.  As we checked out, we talked briefly with a teacher whose accent hinted at UK citizenship.  His travels via the hostel system allowed him to hike the Dolomites of Italy just like us the year before.

The next part of our journey caused some angst for Alex: driving in San Francisco.  We picked up our rental car from Enterprise, located two blocks away, and headed off.  Arthur, the one actually driving, took the attitude that his qualifications likely equaled or exceeded the average driver, so he showed less concern than Alex did.  We should note that the totality of our San Francisco driving experience took place between 8 and 8:30 on a Sunday morning, but our experience supported Arthur’s confidence.

After a short drive, we found ourselves right outside the Golden Gate Bridge.  We parked in some free parking a little ways off, but on this early morning we were more interested in walking around and taking it in anyway.  Apparently, the area serves photographers well, when we first got there the only other people utilizing the area was a bride and photographer; we seem to have a knack for picking out good wedding picture locations.  We walked along bunkers embedded in the hills, a remnant of WWII, and down to the Presidio, a sort of park-like area overlooking the harbor.

We took a tour of the Golden Gate Bridge through a free tour service put on by the San Francisco public library system (what an extraordinary service!)  Our tour guide actually works as a civil engineer, and a second civil engineer took the tour with us, so you can imagine how much fun Arthur had talking over the design of the bridge during the tour.  We saw some magnificent views of the bridge and the surrounding area, culminating in a walk to about the center point and back.  Suspended about 250 feet above the bay below, the bridge definitely messes with your sense of balance a little.

Ironically, driving the bridge didn't phase Arthur at all.  Interstate overpasses always cause him to grip the wheel a bit tighter, but with three lanes of traffic and pedestrians walking along the outside, we were well enclosed and it wasn't scary at all.

So we headed on to our next destination, Point Reyes, a peninsula not far north of San Francisco.  The city of Point Reyes, surrounded by such a natural setting, took great pride in its ecologically friendly businesses.  We got sandwiches from a local cafe wrapped in biodegradable paper and ate outside in beautiful weather.  When fished, we disposed of our refuse in the first compost bins I remember ever seeing put out by a city.  Before long, we slipped completely from the bustle of the city into a wilderness formed from the estuaries where the fresh water of the Sierra Nevada mountains trickles down an interacts with the Pacific.  We got a nice hike in, reaching the Pacific to hear it's terrific roar before heading back.

Our evening went heavenly, with pizza at Cafe Reyes (and enough for breakfast the next morning) and slept soundly at what increasingly serves as a welcome site to us, the local hostel.  Thus ended a a day that began in a huge metropolitan area and found us at its end in a nature preserve.  Omnia Vincit Amour.