My Life in the Big City

Maybe it’s being from Michigan, but I’m a sucker for lighthouses. Running down the coast, small gray lines on my California map pulled to the ocean and a lighthouse time and time again. I discovered “The Lost Coast,” the largest expanse of wild ocean shoreline in the continental United States.  It is surrounded by the enormous King National Conservation Area.  In the rolling fog of the Pacific, it seemed a mystical place and I wanted to just sit for awhile. At Pt. Reyes Station, I again followed a squiggly gray line which took me up and over an unusual oceanic desert landscape for about a 2-hour detour. I came to a stop at the spectacular Pt. Reyes Lighthouse.

 Pt. Reyes Light Station

  
Here I learned that a 100-minute AT&T phone card will charge you 79 minutes of payphone time to make a 40-second call to a number that does not answer. So much for arranging San Francisco accommodations with an old college friend. I need to find a Walmart and buy one of those throw-away Tracphones. 

Marin County village

The specter of negotiating a major metropolitan area like the Bay Area was not attractive but I wanted to see my old film buddy, Ned. Hwy 1 through Marin County offered even tighter switchback turns and also became increasingly congested with Sunday evening traffic returning from Marin County diversions.  I had to “duck-foot” my way onto the Golden Gate Bridge, negotiate downtown San Francisco, and then master the art of “lane splitting.” The 101 Expressway had backed up due to an accident 50 miles south. I could sit there politely as though I thought I really needed a whole lane to ride down. Or I could “split the difference” with a car on either side. I never did get as fast or as brave as the California bikers, but I managed to weave and dodge the creeping cars and improve my position in a most satisfying way. It was good to have had practice in Mexico.

 

 

San Francisco across the bay

 On a positive note, the “big city” did allow me to pick up a cell phone for $7.99 at a drug store, eat my fill of Salvadorean papusas, replace a bald rear tire, and spend two nights with an old friend and a new friend marveling at how we had aged over the years. By early evening Tuesday the 2nd of October, I was at Yosemite. I was also learning that National Parks will not accept credit cards for camping and that ATMs are right up there with cell phones in the category of indispensable technology. A Cliff Bar, cup of hot chocolate, and a flask of Dewars sufficed for supper.

A slow move across the Golden Gate