Santa Barbara, CA and Beyond

On Wednesday, April 5th I packed up after sitting in one spot for five months and hit the road. After being in one spot for so long it was a little hard to move on. But I said my goodbyes with hugs and handshakes in headed out about 9 o’clock. It took me over five hours to get the Santa Barbara and El Capitan State Beach. This was the halfway point between Potrero and San Francisco area where I’ll be spending a couple weeks. So I plan on stopping here for three nights. It was an okay campground with no hookups, but at $35 a night I thought was a little pricey. But that’s typical in California most of the campgrounds are a little on the high side especially along the coast. Where I was parked it was basically just a parking spot on a paved lot. Here’s a photo of where was part with the beautiful yellow flowered hills in the background.

Here’s some photos off the cliff, looking down at the beach just down the hill from my campsite.There were beautiful flowers all over and we went for a walk along the trails and got some photos.The next day we took a ride in the town and went to the dog beach. The coast here is much more rugged and Rocky then it was down in San Diego area. But Maxine still had fun playing in the surf.We did come along once California Sea Lion on the beach and there was a guy there coming to its aid. From what they could figure it was sick with a kind of acid toxicity from eating fish with a high level of algae. Unfortunately there isn’t much they could do for except keep it safe and wait out to see if it got better. Here’s a photo of Santa Barbara from the pier in townend community.Most of the three days here were spent relaxing and unwinding. On Saturday morning I headed up toward San Francisco Bay taking another 5 to 6 hours to arrive at Anthony Chabot Regional Park. This is where I’ll be spending the next couple weeks. On Tuesday, April 11 my sister Bonnie will be coming out to spend five or six days with me and will be exploring the San Francisco area. The park is nestled between giant eucalyptus trees.I got a nice spacious campsite would views of the valley right on my window.As you hike around the park you get views of the city of Oakland off in the distance just to the west.And if you look a little further you can see the Bay of San Francisco. The park also surrounded a nice reservoir down in the Valley. Like many of the reservoirs in California (because they are used for drinking water) no swimming and very limited boating is allowed.The next day I took a ride in the town so I could go across the famous Golden Gate Bridge. Here’s photos as I approached and across the bridge.

One of the nice things about this bridge is there is a walkway, so you can walk all the way across the bridge if you like. Which many people do as you can tell from this photo.You can also see the world-famous Alcatraz (the rock) in the bay from the bridge quite well.After spending a little time on the bridge I drove out to the Point Bonita Lighthouse. Along the way you can look back from the bluffs and get beautiful views of the bridge in the distance.Here’s a view down towards the lighthouse which is way off to the point on the left.You have to hike about a half-mile to get the lighthouse which is only open on weekends and Mondays. It’s a beautiful walk along the coast.You even go through a short tunnel to get out to the very point where the lighthouse sits.

And all the sudden you come around the corner you have this beautiful lighthouse.It’s a long a very rugged coastline.I also went a little further north to the Muir Woods National Monument and went down to the beach in the park. It’s a small rocky and dark sand beach as most of the coastline is as you work your way north in California.You can see by these houses built right along the beach, why with heavy rains and earthquakes they end up in the ocean.And I came across several signs like this one. Not only do you have to worry about earthquakes and tsunamis, I think next it’ll be swarms of locusts.That’s it for now, just a quick update, but more to come as my times in the Francisco Bay area continue. Take care and best wishes to all, Rick

 

 

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