Two Days in San Francisco

On our first day in San Francisco, I took River out for the morning. We walked from our hotel (La Luna Inn, a comfortable and good value place, with easy access to public transport) about a mile down Lombard street, to the cable car stop.

On the way we had lunch at an organic café called Lettus. I overheard one patron say that people come from all over to eat at this café. I thought it was amazing, both healthy and delicious. As I enjoyed my grilled chicken sandwich on a wheat bun, mixed greens with champagne vinaigrette and a mango smoothie, I wished I had more time in San Francisco so that I could sample more of the wide culinary smorgasbord.

While eating, I struck up a conversation with the man next to me. Originally from Germany, he’d owned a bicycle shop in the neighborhood in the 1970’s. He now lives across the bay, where he says it is warmer and a bit cheaper. It surprised me how easy it was to converse with a stranger over lunch and I wished that happened more often out east. I enjoyed listening to his take on life in San Francisco.

After lunch, River and I continued on toward the cable car. A stroller is a handy thing, I learned, when there are two adults available to help out, but it is not an easy thing to handle alone. On the way, River became hungry and upset. I didn’t see any cafes in the area, so I stopped in a hotel lobby to feed him and luckily, no one kicked us out. When he finished, we continued on, and we walked up a very steep hill for about three blocks. It was so steep I feared letting go of the stroller. If I did, it would roll at high speed back down the hill and zip into oncoming traffic. So I held on tight and walked slowly. We reached the top, at the intersection of Hyde and Lombard streets. There began what is called the world’s crookedest street,” a downhill street that curves back and forth without any clear reason. From such a high vantage point there were beautiful views of the bay, of the city, and of the streetcars puffing up the hill.

Our plan was to catch the streetcar and travel on it across town, then continue on to the café where I planned to meet a friend. Only upon seeing several full streetcars approach and leave did I realize it was very unlikely that I’d be able to lift River, the stroller, my backpack, and the carrier onto the streetcar, find a seat and be able to buy a ticket, especially since one had to ascend steps to get on. I was going to try until River started crying again. Then I knew it was impossible. I’d become what I’d swore I’d never be – the person who carries too much baby junk around. I had so much it made me immobile and I learned my lesson.

Unable to get on the cable car, we headed back down hill to go to the nearest bus stop. This hill was equally steep, at least a 60 degree angle. But this time it was downhill, which was even harder. Should the weight of the stroller pull me forward too fall, I could lose my grip and the stroller would roll. I could see the busy street a few blocks down where the runaway stroller would crash into oncoming traffic. I wasn’t reassured to see a sign for parked cars that read “Prevent Runaways.” It told drivers to turn their wheels in and use the emergency brake.

I hung on for life and moved with baby steps, my quads bent and flexed as though I was skiing. We made it safely to the bottom and I managed to lift the stroller onto the bus.

“You have to take the stroller apart,” the driver told me when I boarded.

“OK,” I said. “I’ll do it as soon as I sit down.”

I plopped down somewhere near the front, next to a woman with silver hair. She was intrigued by the little hands she could see moving under the sunshade and began to ask about River. When I started to take the stroller apart, she told me not to.

“You’ll have two things to carry then,” she said.

“But the bus driver doesn’t like it.”

“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “There is a lot of tension right now between the drivers and the public. There have been a lot of complaints about poor customer services. There are even videos of drivers closing doors on people and racking up all kinds of violations. But because they have a very strong union, they haven’t been able to get rid of anyone yet. But now, with all the pressure, the drivers are on edge. So just tell him you are doing your best,” she said.

I appreciated her friendliness and her support. She went on to tell me about her life in San Francisco. That was the second stranger to have an extended conversation with me in just the few hours I’d been out in the city. I liked the openness and friendliness very much. However, for us at least, it seems more like a nice place to visit than a place to consider living, due to the high cost of real estate and what people said were not very good public schools.

After meeting a friend for coffee, where we learned more about the local lifestyle, we had dinner at a fancy restaurant on the Fisherman’s Wharf, where we had tender sea bass fresh from the ocean.

On our second day, I decided to take a walking tour of Chinatown. My tour guide lived in Chinatown for 22 years, so she was able to offer a personal perspective that helped convey what the local life and culture were like. With River strapped to my chest, I walked through alleyways, into shops and temples and down streets packed with Chinese immigrants, a small little world onto itself.

Hiking the Redwoods

Today was one of my favorite days of our almost two weeks of travel. We spend the day exploring – hiking and driving through – the Redwood National Forest.

In the morning I called the park office and a woman gave us some helpful information about good hiking paths and highlights of the park. She directed us to a loop drive in the north of the park. Our first stop was a 1.25 mile hike on that loop.

Before we even got out to hike, we were already impressed. The giant redwoods loomed over us on either side of the car. We could see only the trunks from the car window, but they were so thick we could just imagine what rose from them.

The hiking path was soft. We walked through an area that seemed prehistoric. Ferns and dense, bright green foliage covered the ground. Thick redwood trunks surrounded us. And the redwoods rose far, far up above us, causing us to crane our necks to try to see the tops. The tall trees and dense foliage blocked out the light, making the forest dark and chill. In the places where light filtered through, it danced against the greenery, like a sprinkler emitting much needed droplets of water.

We learned a bit about the redwoods – how their thick bark protects them from
fire, how they can grow to 350 feet, 20 feet in diameter and over 800 years old. We saw how the trunks hollowed out from fires, creating spaces taller than me. We learned how the fungi break down dead trees. Even the fallen trees were majestic, their roots as wide as our SUV, the trunks looking like a sunken ship, covered with moss instead of seaweed. I could sense the decay and regeneration all around me.

I tried to imagine what it was like before the paths were constructed, when people had to make their way through the forbidding land on their own. When I looked up at the branches covered in moss, as though dripping slime, the carpet of ferns, the endlessly tall trees, I felt like I’d entered some type of fantasy or secret world.

We continued along the loop, crossing over a turquoise rushing river that reminded both Mark and I of Kyrgyzstan. Then we went on a single lane, rough road that was one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever taken. For eleven miles, the trees pressed in upon us, coming within inches of the car. We drove through a green canopy, the outside world feeling far away indeed. When eventually we did emerge and the thick dark forest turned into bare trees and farmland, it was as though someone had removed a blindfold from our eyes and allowed the light in.

Further south we took a couple more hikes. Our most substantial hike of the day, about three miles, was in the Prairie Creek Area. We took the Cathedral Trees path, a journey through a dark green wonderland, and returned via the Prairie Creek trail, which followed a clear, rippling creek. Several trees had fallen across the path due to bad weather in the past few weeks. So we had to do a bit of scrambling, made more difficult by carrying the baby. But we managed to make it through and even saw two black tailed deer on the way.

Our final activity of the day was to see if we could see some elk. The park employee I’d spoken to that morning told me she almost always saw elk when she came to the Prairie Creek Area. A ranger at the visitor’s center there gave us some tips on spotting them and we turned on an a.m. station dedicated to elk information. When we turned off onto a road where elk are often seen, I spotted a group of them behind a barn. We paused to watch them and saw a male with large curved antler, probably a younger male with less developed antlers and several females.

It was great to see them in the wild. In our few weeks of travel we’d seen a coyote, sea lions and elk, not bad considering we never went too far off-road.

We drove down to Eureka for dinner. With a population of 26,000, it’s the largest town on the northern coast. From what I’d read I expected it to be a quaint Victorian town, something like Cape May on the coast of New Jersey. It did have some giant and wildly gingerbratic Victorians but strip shops, chain restaurants, and down-and-out looking people filled most of the streets we saw, making it a not very attractive place.

Compared to Oregon, coastal California feels much more populated and developed. However, once night fell and we continued south on 101 from Eureka, it felt like we had the dark and winding road to ourselves. We could see that we were driving through more groves of redwoods. The thick trunks stood out even in the darkness. We could also see rock-catching nets at the base of roadside sheer mountain faces. Bolivia could certainly make use of something like that.

One benefit of traveling at this time of year has been the ability to enjoy many of the places we’ve visited without feeling like we have to share them. We can choose lodging at the last minute because almost everywhere has vacancy. Even at the Redwoods today, we passed very few people on the hiking paths. We walked through the massive forests as though we were the only visitors. It was great to be able to focus on the sound of the trilling birds, the tinkling brooks, and the falling leaves, rather than hearing other humans.

In the evening we made our longest drive of the trip, doing the long haul of 200 plus miles to San Francisco. Hard to believe that we’ve almost made it down the Western coast and that 48 hours from now we’ll be heading toward Mexico

River is handling the traveling quite well. It’s giving Mark and I both more quality time than we have with him at home. His needs are basically eating and sleeping. I’ve learned to let him breastfeed while I walk when I carry him on me and he sleeps in there too. So he’s generally fine with hikes, car rides, visits to restaurants, whatever. At home, his need to eat feels to me like it ties me down, preventing me from going to the library to work or to do the other things I’d like to do. But while traveling, I just feed him as we move. Instead of him tying me down, I’m carrying him along. We might slow down a bit because of him, or change our plans slightly. But because I’m always seeing something new, collecting novel experiences, I’m happy to share them with him. As a result, I enjoy the feeding and care of him more and see it as more of a joy than a burden. As he nears 12 weeks of age, he seems to know us, be interested in us and his surroundings, and react to experiences. While we know he’ll never remember any of these, we enjoy sharing the adventures with him, hope the forest and mountain and sea air will be good for his development, and take lots of pictures to show him someday where he’s been.

Exploring Sand Dunes

We started off our day today at the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. Mark joined a couple on an exciting high-speed ride up and down some dunes on a dune buggy. I stayed behind with River and Mark said that was a good decision, since the driver caroused over steep sand cliffs. The woman who went with them spent the ride with her eyes closed. Mark enjoyed it though.

We then went to the park, stopping by the visitor’s center for some information, then driving to a viewpoint. On one side, I could walk over small dunes to the beach – a long stretch of sand with waves crashing up onto the sand. On the other side, all-terrain vehicle tracks extended up into the dune hills. I think the best way to explore them would be on a four-wheeler, following a guide who knows the way and with the ability to control one’s own speed.

We then continued on and took a one-mile hike recommended by the visitor’s center. The trail went through a forested area, past water, and led us into an area of vast sandy dunes. I climbed up the tallest one and looked out over a beautiful vista – to the ocean on one side, forested hills on the other, and in between, ripples of sand inclines dotted with coastal grasses.

From there we continued south, heading further down the Oregon coast. I was able to throw off my winter jacket today, replacing it with a light windbreaker. We’ve continued our sunny streak, but as we head south, it’s becoming warmer as well as sunny. My favorite town we went through was Bandon, which had an attractive old town on the bay. It was a nice place to stop for a bite to eat, with several seafood places along the waterfront, as well as shops selling sweets made from the locally produced cranberries.

As we continued toward northern California, we continued to stop at the lookout posts and occasionally took short hikes toward views. We gazed out upon crashing waves, rock outcroppings, mountain promontories, winding roads, rocks formed into arches and natural bridges, rivers entering the ocean, small towns, strip malls and towards the end of the day, the sun falling into the horizon like a half egg yolk.

I love how the ocean is so calm on the Oregon coast, crashing only towards the shore, but extending out toward the horizon in mere ripples. I enjoyed going through one state park after another and how so much of the coast is sparsely populated. I loved the seafood, the friendly people and the lack of sales tax. I liked how large developers hadn’t bought out the coastline, so that there are plenty of motels, modest homes and other small properties with fantastic views. Most of all, I liked the sense of freedom that I felt in Oregon. It’s a great place and one I’d be happy to return to and explore more thoroughly.

We traveled through the first 20 miles or so of northern California. We found lodgings at an oceanside motel on the edge of Crescent City. Crescent City is full of motels, grocery stores and chain restaurants. But it’s also the northern edge of the Redwood National Park, our destination for tomorrow.