Over the Bridge and Through the Woods

Monday dawned and we woke early, beginning to pack our bags and getting CJ road ready again. During our eastern trek to Yosemite we game back through a mountain road that took us up to 10,000 ft. That night, when we crawled in the back of Calamity we noticed that we were slowly sinking to the bottom of the van. We figured that the elevation had made the air mattress in the back spring a leak and spent the night slightly discomforted on the deflated air mattress. Since it was only one night we had to deal with this unpleasantness we weren't too concerned. We had planned to fill up the air mattress at Angella's house, find the hole, and patch it up before hitting the road again. As we pulled the air mattress into the garage and inflated it we noticed that it filled with the same vigor as it always had. Katie proceeded to lay on the mattress as I searched up and down the seams trying to find the whole but we never did. We decided to fill it as much as we could, and hope that it deflated slowly and we could sneak a couple more nights out of it before there was no air left. To add to this displeasure, when Katie began to empty out the back of CJ in order to get to the air mattress she found all of our sleeping bags and blankets piled up near the back were sopping wet. Apparently, though CJ has never leaked on us before, while seated in the same spot, slightly tilted uphill, during these past two days of intense rain, she finally gave way and began to leak water inside. Since all of our sleeping gear was now either drenched in water or deflated into flat formlessness, we began to rethink our plans of departure for the day. It was already past noon and by the time we would get our sleeping gear dried it would be 4 p.m. giving us 2.5 hours before daylight left us. We contacted Angella to find out if the Horton Hippie Hotel had a vacancy for one extra night, which to our great joy, they did. Fixed with the problem of having another day to spend in San Francisco Katie and I pondered all of the things in the city we had

not done. Since it was such a gorgeous day finally, we decided that we would walk the Golden Gate Bridge as we had planned to do on many a rainy day, then head to Muir Woods, a redwood forest just outside San Francisco that just happened to be George Lucas' inspiration for the moon of Endor inhabited by the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. When we got to the Golden Gate Bridge we were thrilled to see that it wasn't covered in fog. We had quickly learned that in San Francisco it may be bright and sunny in one place and a half mile away fog can completely

block out the sun. We were pleased to see that this was not the case today. We parked the car on the northern side of the bridge and began to walk one side to the other and back again. As crossed the bridge enduring the strong winding and stopping periodically to look over the side. We saw porpoise's and sea lion's down in the bay and as we reached the southern side we

even saw a few surfers taking advantage of the breaking waves. The walk across the bridge was fun and definitely something that we were both happy that we had done though ultimately it turned out much as we had expected. We definitely came back with a much greater appreciation for the builders of the Golden Gate Bridge, marveling at how tall it is, and how thick the cables are

holding it up. That is something that can easily get lost on visitors when they view it from a distance or quickly drive over top it. After spending time with this feat of engineering we headed back into

nature. A short 20 minute drive from the bridge and we were deep in a valley comprised of redwood trees: Muir Woods. Here we walked a 2 mile loop trail, basically following the river almost out into the ocean, but turning around

just as the setting sun began to break through the dense forest valley. There really isn't much to tell about this place that hasn't already been said about our other walks through the redwoods. These were coastal redwoods, meaning they were tall and not

as thick as California's giant sequoia's which we have yet to see. Muir Woods did have an exceptional amount of dead trees that had fallen over the river and sprouted small new trees from its side, exactly like the Candelabra Tree from the tourist trap Trees of Mystery.

After our hike we headed back to the now familiar settings of the Haight. In the Muir Woods gift shop there was a map of the Haight which gave the location of many houses, of now famous celebrities, who formally called the Haight their home. Among them were The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Mansion, and a house formally occupied by the Hells Angels, just to name a few. These however were the ones we were interested in and coincidentally the ones we memorized and visited upon our return to the city. After our mini sightseeing tour we decided to eat dinner in the Haight one last time. We stopped at the Magnolia Brewery on the corner of Haight and Masonic, just block east of Haight and Ashbury. Given its location, we expected to find a cool place with a run-down but happening setting reflecting the attitude of the Haight. What we found was an uppity sort of atmosphere with a giant oak bar and individual glass bottles at every table for water. It seemed definitely out of place considering where we were but regardless the place was packed with people, mostly middle aged, middle classed business types just getting out of work. We had planned on eating there but after glancing at the menu and finding that burgers were $13, the cheapest thing, and everything else ranged in the $20's we decided to have a couple drinks then get some taco bell to bring back to Angella and Kyle. When we got back to the HHH Angella was still not even back from work, it was past 8 p.m. by now, but Kyle happily ate the 4 taco's we got him. Angella did get home a few minutes after us and we enjoyed our last night together huddled around the TV relaxing after our busy but very different days.