If you think about it you'll agree - every place has a different feel. And you can't just say the sensation is wholly in the temperature! The tropics in summer are not just hot, they are humidly hot and clammy and you feel like you are enveloped in a soup of thick fragrant air. And the mountains in winter are not just cold, they are a unique crispy cold, with the dry tanginess of snow. Each and every place, has it's own distinctive "feel" to it.
And that is what I was pondering in the airport terminal after finally arriving in San Francisco airport. As you do while waiting in the interminable line through customs!
That and how the air at the airport always has the same, mechanically sterile feel, complementing the grainy exhausted feel of your body that comes from an all night flight....
But once you step outside SFO the first hints of the cold San Francisco Bay air hits you, mingled with the hot dry inland hills. Both marine and dessert at the same time. Ah, coastal California, how I have missed you!
We are planning to spend the first two nights of our California trek with our friends who live in Danville (east of San Fran) so in due course we rent our car and start the drive. The kids are exhausted, and half fall asleep and the other half bicker during the car ride. Standard stuff for long haul travel with kids, it's not for the faint of heart, that is for sure. We drive the hour and a half through the ticky tack housing complexes, seemingly endless shopping malls and up through the rolling yellow hills that, despite the ever expanding population of the Bay Area, are still dotted with oak trees.
Our friends have a lovely house in a gated community and we arrive just as the temperature is hitting the high 30's Centegrade. The dry, oven like air is a fire blast when we open the car doors and a reminder of the scorching interior of the Central Valley of California. It's not long before we find our way to the pool to cool off. The lovely cool water cleaning off the grime of the travel from the last 24 hours.
We end up staying up well into the night BBQing with friends that Randall has only ever told me about. I feel a bit drunk with lack of sleep so that I wonder what my first impression was, but then I was too tired to care. And it's good to have faces to names and feel the connection to our California community.
The next day I embarrassed myself by sleeping until 10 - leaving the four kids to our amazing hostess to entertain - although my hubby took the cake by sleeping until well after 11!
Ah, jet lag, it's a wonderful thing. It left us a little time short for the big tour that we were planning on, but in the end we took a nice car tour, not into San Francisco itself, but up to the north of the Bay, to Muir Woods, a place near and dear to my heart and a place that the kids will love!
Muir Woods, a place that I have some of my earliest memories of. My dad just loved this place and always brought us here when he was in the Bay Area on business. I couldn't help but think about all the times my dad told me stories about these legendary trees.
The giant redwoods of California! While these may not be the largest of their species - the very far north of California has that honor - they are, perhaps, the most accessible specimens of Giant Redwoods. Just think, trees that have been living here for a thousand years, or more!
Muir Woods was designated as a national park in 1908 and was dedicated to one of the world's first conservationists, Mr John Muir. A man who I may never have met, but who was my absolute hero for most of my childhood.... but more about him later in our trip when we go to Yosemite.
Muir Woods is a humbling place. The trees are so big and so old.
With all the technology and amazingness of humanity we tend to get caught up in our own importance, so it's refreshing to find yourself humbled by something much older and larger than yourself. I don't think anyone will dispute the fact that trees are alive, and that they have been standing in this sheltered valley since the time of Christ (and before!) gives a good perspective on life itself. Maybe we aren't the bees knees of all species, just because we are the most successful at the moment! Maybe we should keep the earth with a little more respect.
I think back to the days as a little girl walking through theses woods with my dad, the most non religious of persons, in the traditional sense. But I will never, ever forget the time he stopped me and told me to look up. Just look up. Doesn't god live here? In this most beautiful of places. Look up and believe that there is a beauty to this world that will always keep you believing in a higher power. Whether it is a god, a spirit, a force of nature, or simply that some place like this exists. All you need to do is look up at the trees and you will feel connection.
Muir Woods is a natural cathedral.
I love sharing this place with my family and friends. It reminds me of my dad and my spiritual connection to this world.
And after the stale air of the airplane walking for hours in the cool and moist shade of the trees reinvigorates all of our senses.
We finished our day by driving through the touristy town of Sausalito, and then over the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. It's certainly one of the worlds most recognizable sights and the kids were pretty thrilled to see it. But we were tired and the full effect of the bridge was not really consumed.
We ate mexican for dinner, and fell into bed, happy with our outings and full stomachs.
In some way for both myself and Randall this feeling will alway bring a part of home to our hearts. Whether it is the magical mix of salt, desert and fog, or the taste of the mexican spices mixed with fake culture, it's the place that started us on the journey of who we are. And for me it means a lot to show the kids a bit about it so that they can piece together who, what and where their parents came from....
"This is the best tree-lovers monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of the world." John Muir about the newly designated Muir Woods in 1908
