A Hike in the City

A couple days ago, Justin and I took a nice hike on the San Francisco coast, part of which was part of the California Coastal Trail. We took a bus across the bay which was itself a novel experience for me, as I'm more used to taking BART which goes under the water. Being up on the bridge and up high in a bus, we were able to see the progress on the new Bay Bridge--pretty impressive! Next time, I'll get a picture.

From the Transbay Terminal, we caught a bus across town. Instead of feeling frustrated by its slowness, we enjoyed the chance to see the city and its denizens in action all along Geary Street.

Although we had intended to start our hike at Ocean Beach, we got off the bus at Sutro Beach when the bus driver announced the end of the line. Here's a map of San Francisco, for easy reference. We started our walk north of Ocean Beach. The trail led us through some beautiful trees (cypress, I think).


After awhile we came around a corner with a perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge in front of us. (We were willing to turn our backs to it for the sake of the photo.)

Further along, we climbed down through some more beautiful trees, like this one.

I wish the color of these photos represented the truly sparkling blue of the sky that day.

Down at a great rocky shore, Justin went to inspect a mass of mussels on the rocks.
Unfortunately, that's when the camera batteries died. After that is when we discovered that the spare batteries were not in fact charged. So the rest of the trip went undocumented (except of course by the porous net of memory).

Later, the walk took us up through some incredible mansiony neighborhood where all the houses have walls of windows looking out on the bay (the kind of houses that made one of us say "This sort of makes me want to have buttloads of money" and the other of us to say, "It's kind of amazing that the poor haven't risen up yet"). Then we walked back down to Baker Beach and ate the lunch that we'd brought and watched other people also enjoying the beach.

Finally, we walked under the Golden Gate Bridge, across it, and then back. That in itself is an interesting experience. Many people, of many ages, from many lands (and from other parts of this one) were gathered at each end of the bridge, and others were walking, jogging, and cycling across. Even for those of us who grew up seeing and passing over the bridge, seeing it up close really brings into focus its amazing vision and engineering. I came away with a renewed sense of wonder and admiration for people with big ideas who see them through.