We left Betty’s about noon and headed over to the coast to our campground in a small town called Greenbrae, CA. It’s on the west side of the peninsula that just south into the San Francisco Bay, 10 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. So, why did I put San Francisco in the location section of my blog? Well, who has ever heard of Greenbrae? It might be a nice town but you wouldn’t have a clue where we were. San Francisco and you’re with us. Beautiful day for travel. We stopped at Flying J for fuel and then turned west towards the coast. There was more traffic than we see in central Iowa (except on game days for Iowa State and the Hawkeyes when it’s bumper to bumper) but not as much as we might have expected. Steady but not necessarily heavy. We had two short ranges to get over before we saw the bay.
Was the road well used? Sure was and this picture shows some of the best. We bounced through lots of potholes in one section but were out of them before I thought to get my camera out.
Bucolic views as we crossed through the first range. Lush green grasses, cows having lunch on the sides of the rolling hills
and wind turbines everywhere out here in California. In Iowa, flat corn field are covered with turbines, out here, they line the ridge tops. Whatever works.
We had through that the traffic in Oakland and Berkeley would be very heavy. Not looking forward to it at all and had actually spent some time with a map trying to figure a better way to the campground from where we were. My cousin, Jeff, then told us that there was no better way, that the only way was right through the heart of Oakland and Berkeley. He told us the traffic would be heavy, stop and go and that we should have left about 9:30. Well, we missed that by about 3 hours so we gritted our teeth, grabbed hold of whatever we could and took our chances. Well, it was heavy, no doubt, and we were slowed down a bit but it moved right along and soon we were at the bridge crossing the bay and close to our campground. Better trip than we had thought - Gary did his usual magnificent job of driving. He told me later that when the construction narrowed our lane to the bare minimum (we couldn’t even see a white line on the right) (this was right where I was watching to see that our rear view mirrors stayed on) he was a tetch nervous. But he did wonderfully.
And, pretty views out side the window.
Campgrounds tout their advantages: close to shopping, close to attractions, pool, ‘free’ wi-fi, cable TV, propane, etc. This campground touts that it is:
What it neglects to say is that we can see San Quentin from here. Oh, you say, that’s not really an ‘advantage.’
No, not really, but it’s true, we can actually see San Quentin if we walk towards the front of the camp and over to the abandoned railroad tracks. We can also see the bay, we can also see the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge, ferries across the bay, smaller boats out on the water. Great Views. But the real advantage to this campground is that it is withing walking distance of the ferry to San Francisco. What could be better? When we want to go to the east side of the city, we can take the ferry. When we want to go to the west side, the coast, we’ll take the car and drive over the Golden Gate Bridge. Could it get any better?
OK, back to our journey to our home for the next month. After the traffic in Oakland we hit the magnificent Richmond-San Raphael Bridge over the bay.
(Oops, as I’m writing this, we see an RV leaving the campground with its sewer hose still attached. Whew, he stopped, got out, saw what was making the awful dragging sound he heard, looked around and is now backing up to see where the other sewer pieces are. What else did he leave behind?)
Then we hit the city streets of Greenbrae. A bit of a maze through city streets getting to the campground. But we finally arrived, checked in, paid and settled into our spot. We’ll be here for a month. Oh, yeah, we’ve got to take our walk for the day - how about just circling the bay here to check out how long it will take us to walk to the ferry and just stretch our legs. There are lots of good trails around here to walk on - or bike on. Biking is big. Of course, walkers have to be aware of the bikes and some of the riders who think they’re kamikazes. We saw one biker almost mow down a walker on the multi-use trail. The biker gave no signal that he was coming and, without looking around, the walker turned left right into the path of the biker who was passing him. Both at fault but it could have been a real brutal.
The walk we took rounded the tip of the little bay we’re on and heads down the other side. We found this cool modern statue with Mt Tom in the background.
Wondered who it was until we noticed that we were on Sir Francis Drake Blvd. Aha - good clue. Drake sailed around this region on his round-the-world trip and actually stopped off the coast to make repairs to his ship. Tomorrow, we’ll visit the spot where he landed at Point Reyes National Seashore.
Saw the ferry coming in with commuters coming home from their jobs in from San Francisco.
And, again Mt. Tom. Looks like a goal to me.
Time to head back to the RV. Pinch me quick, I’m in San Francisco.
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