San Francisco - 2018 - Day 3

Friday was all about Muir Woods. Jenny and I had planned to visit here when we came to the area last September but weren’t able to make it due to the wildfires at the time. We were lucky to have seen a sign that warned visitors that they needed a parking reservation prior to visiting. We had secured a noon parking reservation for the day, but we were a little early. The parking attendants informed us that we couldn’t come until our reservation time, so we continued down the road to Muir Beach, about 3 miles past the entrance to Muir Woods.

The beach was nice, though the weather cool and overcast. We did a little hiking up the hillside where we had some good views of the beach and surrounding area. There was some kind of camp or kid’s event going on at the time. We saw probably 50 kids participating in various beach games like capture the flip-flop and tag before they all put on their wet suits and got on their surf boards. Summer camp must be a lot different in California!!!

Around noon we headed back to the parking area for Muir Woods and started our hike. For those that don’t know, this is allegedly (or maybe confirmedly) the location that George Lucas used to film the Endor scenes in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. We plotted a hike that took us on the “Canopy View,” about a 3.5 mile loop hike through the area, which took us about 2.5 hours to complete. It was definitely a must see, though probably not for those that can’t walk very well. It was about halfway through the hike where Ethan proclaimed that California was now his favorite state with Colorado being a close second. I was really impressed at how well Mireille did on the hike. She was a champion right up until the end of the hike where her armor cracked just a little bit. Quinton, of course, had the stomach flu!!!

After the hike we stopped and got some food at a crappy Mexican restaurant, then headed back to the hotel for a nap. We were tired enough, in fact, that we just got some chicken from Safeway and some crappy room-service pizza for dinner. At one point I marveled at the fact that the entire family was sitting in one room watching TV, just like families of old! Of course, Quinton and Mireille were both on their iPads, but still, we were all sitting there. Because Mireille was on her iPad, Ethan got cranky at her and told her to go and sit on her bed. What Ethan forgot was that Mireille didn’t have a bed. We had been letting her fall asleep in one of the two queen beds in our suite, then moving her to the floor to a “bed” we constructed of the couch’s cushions. So when Ethan asked her to go sit on her bed, she told him, “I don’t have a bed. You are sitting on my bed!” Touche.

Just because we were tired didn’t mean we couldn’t swim, so we did… Then to bed after yet another physically exerting day!