As we had been working our way north toward the coast over the last few weeks, we had been having several discussions about whether we should be there at all. Mike’s mom had been dealing with some health issues and despite his dad’s assurances that things were ok, we felt like we should be with them in Florida.
As we made our way toward San Francisco and while we were there, Mike’s mom’s condition changed, so while there was no urgent rush, we decided that we needed to make our way to them. We would enjoy a few days in the Bay area (and pick up mail) and then book it to central Florida.
A big part of my desire to visit the Bay area was to visit my friend Sarah and share with Mike a little bit of the beauty I had experienced on hike’s in the past. Looking ahead, we hadn’t been sure of where we would park Scarlet and then another friend, Arantxa, reached out. She lived in the bay area and happened to have an RV parking spot beside her house that her family never used (at least for parking an RV). We were welcome to it!
We moved south and I was surprised how quickly we covered ground now that we were travelling on relatively flat interstates. One night in a Home Depot parking lot and we were getting close. We spent some time exploring Samuel P. Taylor State Park, a beautiful park down in a canyon with a mix of old and new growth redwoods and a fantastic area for picnics!
Then we headed toward Highway 1. The views were pretty amazing, we didn’t have to pass too many cyclists and we only damaged Scarlet a little on the incredibly sharp turns heading down the coast. (We bent one of the triangular pieces on the underbody – it did a good job protecting the frame and tanks!) Then we made our way to Richmond to land in our next home.
Arantxa and her family were absolutely lovely hosts! We shared a couple of meals on their patio, took advantage of laundry, and collected the mail they were holding for us. It was lovely to have some extended time with new friends, sharing tales of how life has been different over the past 6 months. We spent a little bit of time in each others homes (masked, of course) and Arantxa and Christian’s son Sebastian became quite enamored with both Mike and the many color-changing lights in the trailer that could be controlled via remote.
We really only had time to do one day-long hike, so I wanted to make the most of it. This desire and my faulty memory made me hit hit up the person who remembers everything!
I was hoping that this one hike would pack in as much as possible and it did? We parked on the side of the road on the Panoramic Highway and made our way down the side of steep hill to a side entrance to John Muir Woods.
As usual, we loved the lesser-travelled paths more than the busier sections of the park. The path down took us from grassy vistas down into second-growth and then old growth redwoods. Again, an incredibly quiet and peaceful hike.
Once into Muir Woods, we circled through all of the loops and then made our way up and out of the valley on the west side, regaining all of the elevation we lost when we descended from our car. And once we got up the other side, we did indeed see glimpses of the bay in between rolling fog.
Before we started the long drive to Florida, we were able to spend a night with Sarah and her family – cooking, eating, drinking and sharing time with little seen friends.
