San Francisco/ Muir Woods Day Trip

Day 54

Kendrick and I took off at 7:00 to Los Gatos Middle School for a time trial for one of his clients. The middle aged woman hadn’t run faster than 21:00 for 3 miles in about 20 years so I was set to pace her through the laps on the gravel track. The first mile was perfectly on pace, then she started to falter and things went to shit. Kendrick ran the last ½ mile with us to encourage her and we crossed the line at 22:37 after she started showing a rather strong kick. With more training she should be fine.

Driving back to his apartment, a teenaged girl on the cell phone rear ended us at about 3 mph without any damage – a truly shocking occurrence, especially in California.

Liv and I drove into San Francisco to visit the SFMoMA. The collection was decent, with O’Keefe, Duchamp, Picasso, and Matisse on display. Their contemporary selection was small but intriguing and overall the museum was worth the two hour visit.

Next, we headed to Haight-Ashbury for some hippie inspired dining. The populace was stimulating to say the least and the lunch was excellent, even though we didn’t understand the menu whatsoever. A few hours in Golden Gate Park were spent in the Japanese Tea Gardens (small but excellent) and other botanically oriented features. The sun even managed to come out and warm things up a bit.

Our last adventure for the day took us across the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Woods National Monument were we got our fill of redwoods. The trails were manageably crowded but the less known areas were quiet and peaceful. Heading back to San Jose, we stopped at the Marin Headlands and looked back on the city for a quick overly photographed view.

Unfortunately, traffic made us too late to cook maple glazed salmon with pineapple salsa for Kendrick and Abby, but we made a smaller sized meal for our starving stomachs. The apartment definitely seemed a bit smaller when we got back, making it apparent that we just might have overstayed our welcome (and our welcome had overstayed us).

Tomorrow we’ll hit the road for some solitude in the Wine Country then it’s off to Alaska for a bit of sanity.