Day 6

 I really don’t know how to begin to describe today. It was phenomenal. 

We started off by walking 3 blocks down to Boavida for smoothies and a couple of gluten free cookies for the “road”. I had the sage mountain smoothie which was coconut milk, banana, dates, cardamom and cinnamon. Jo Anne had the ocean beach smoothie which was coconut milk, açaí, blueberries, strawberries, and honey. I mention this only because that’s all we had to eat until we got back to our hotel at 4:15 after walking 17 miles. 

Leaving the hotel, we walked by the SF zoo again to try to replicate this picture. 

This is our mom Jean on the left, aunt Rosie on the right and uncle Bill behind them. Our great grandmother is standing on the left with her back to the camera. Picture taken in 1947. 

The entrance is no longer the same but here we sit 74 years later. I took the pic of Jo Anne sitting here and she took the pic of me and my granddaughter Saige put the two pics together for us. Thank you Saige!

From the zoo we head to the beach and will walk along the beach for the first 3 miles. 

Windmill and entrance to the Golden Gate Park. 

The famous Cliff House restaurant has stood on this promontory since 1863. It has been destroyed and rebuilt three times. Five presidents have been visitors as well as Mark Twain who coined the phrase “the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

My uncle Bill sent me this picture taken on one of their visits to San Francisco. I took the one below this morning. 

These are the Seal Rocks behind the Cliff House. 

Sutro Bath ruins

Steps going down to the Sutro Bath ruins. German immigrant Adolph Sutro built the worlds largest indoor swimming complex in the 1800s. It was covered by 3 acres of stained glass and steel. How I would have loved to see that stained glass!!!

As we head up the hill, we come to Lands End and eventually the Seacliff neighborhood. Lewis K (Kurt) and Elizabeth Land lived in this area and were big benefactors to the Golden Gate Park, de Young Museum and the California Academy of Sciences Mineral Museum. 

In 1966, my grandad won a blue ribbon at the Tucson gem show for his sphere exhibit. Mr Land saw the sphere exhibit and purchased it from my grandad. He had a case built to house the collection and was very proud of it. He invited my grandmother, grandad, uncle Bill and Barbara to dinner one evening when they were visiting the area and showed them the cabinet he had built to showcase the collection. Mr Land later donated the sphere collection to the Golden Gate Park California Academy of Sciences Mineral Museum and paid them to build a fantastic exhibit space at the entrance to the museum. 

I believe this was the Land’s house. It is almost covered up with shrubbery now but overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge with a path down the cliff to the ocean below. Mr Land called it a French Box style. The picture doesn’t begin to show the opulence of the homes in this area or their location in reference to the Golden Gate Bridge.

We had to climb up these steps to get to the Seacliff neighborhood. If you zoom in on the picture you can see me waaay up there. And I’m only halfway. There wasn’t supposed to be any climbing today but you will see at the end of the blog that we climbed the equivalent of 35 floors. We went from sea level to 270’, then back to sea level and up to about 290’ later. Then down and up again to our hotel. I think that qualifies as climbing and our legs sure agree. 

Jo Anne coming up from the bottom. 

Our first glimpse of the bridge, the culmination of our coastal walk. 

Very interesting tree and roots. 

And steps down

From the Seacliff neighborhood we walk back down to the beach, through deep sand (which loved the hole in my shoes) and on towards the bridge. 

This sand ladder drops off over the edge of the hill down to the beach. We took a different (less treacherous) route up from the beach. 

It still looks very far away. 

But it’s getting closer. 

We walk under the road to get to the visitor center and pedestrian walkway. 

Our lunch spot today. I use the term lunch lightly as we shared a bag of chips leftover from our shared lunch yesterday and had the gluten free cookie we bought at breakfast. 

Heading up the path to walk the bridge. 

On the bridge to begin the walk over. 

The traffic was so loud we had to yell at each other to be heard.  

View of San Francisco from the bridge. 

Built in 1937 in the Art Deco style and distinctive orange color 

The bridge is 225’ above the water. 

Looking toward Sausalito and the marina at Horseshoe Bay. We are almost across the bridge. There were seals frolicking in the water below. So fun to watch them. 

We made it all the way across (1.7 miles)

Now we just have to turn around and go back 😁

A little scary to see how this thing is held together. I must admit that when we first started across I got a weird feeling in my stomach and my feet started tingling. Very odd. 

Inside view of one of those cables. 

Closeup of the inside. 

Leaving the bridge behind, our walk with Macs Adventure is officially over. The fog started rolling in and it got windy and colder right after we left the bridge. 

Now we aim for the hotel, walking through presidio park. 

Passing the San Francisco national cemetery

And the Korean War memorial. Our dad was a marine during the Korean War. 

Looking back down the trail we just climbed up. 

Once again we are walking up up up. 

And Jo Anne is done done done

We are so hungry and the only place to eat close to our hotel is this Greek kabob restaurant so we decide to give it a go. They brought out this warm delicious smelling bread which of course I can’t eat but Jo Anne can and did 😁. 

I had the lamb kabob and it was delicious!

Jo Anne had the chicken. 

We are checked in and this is the view from our room. 

This is the same hotel (Laurel Inn) we stayed in on Friday night when we arrived in San Francisco. They had a little welcome gift for us. 

And had upgraded us to a suite

Kitchen and all

39,495 steps

17.1 miles

35 floors

 I got most of the blog done last night but was just too tired to finish so had to get the rest done this morning. You can see why. 

The pictures don’t tell the story adequately. We needed a synonym for WOW because it seemed at every turn in the road that’s what came out of our mouths. The weather today was perfect (sunny, clear and just enough wind to keep us cool) the walk was difficult but worth every minute, the chance to walk where our ancestors have trod and hear the stories from our uncle Bill made this journey an emotional one and one we will never forget. 

Watching the sunrise from our room and appreciating that today is a spa day 👏🏻 

One quick thing before I sign off this morning: please pray for my good friend Glenda. I just found out that she has a tumor on her heart and will be having open heart surgery next week, possibly Monday.