Having blown it out hiking more than 20 miles the last two days, today I decided to spend my last full day in Point Reyes as a tourist and see the local sights, but from my convertible. The highlight was the famous Point Reyes Lighthouse.
Today was a bit warmer than the last few days, so I was glad not to be taking another hike. Late in the day the lady who owns a shop where I bought a shirt was complaining that today had been a scorcher (the official high for Point Reyes Station was 77). Yeah. 106 degrees in Austin thinks you people are a bunch of pansies. I decided to have a proper breakfast this morning, so I drove into Point Reyes Station to the Pine Cone Diner for a cheese and mushroom omelet, and chicken apple sausage. Sidebar: this whole state is crazy with chicken apple sausage. Its almost like getting chips and hot sauce in Texas its so plentiful. Fortunately, most places its really good and healthier than normal sausage. Anyway, the Pine Cone Diner isn’t quite the real thing, but it’s a pretty good substitute given that I’m in Marin County. Plenty of diner kitsch, including chrome and formica tables, vinyl covered booths, and a genuine diner counter. The menu, however, was “diner-esque” but with a more upscale twist. You get your has browns alright, using organic potatoes and cooked with sparing trans fat free oil. Though there were a few other customers, everyone by and large was content to be quiet and peaceful on this Friday morning-no guys in suits texting or talking on the cell phones. Ah, to be in the country. All in all it was a really good breakfast experience.
Part of the breakfast experience is reading the paper, and in this case that means the San Francisco Examiner, purchased for $1.00. As if that fact alone isn’t appalling (paying $1.00 in this day and age for already stale news), I notice that even in an age of thinning newspapers, the Examiner is extremely paltry. I guess that what with budget crises, health care, the Giants in the pennant race and the like there’s not much news to report. Its one thing to jack up the price, its another to give people less for that increased price. The airlines think newspapers aren’t giving people their money’s worth. And what was on the front page of the San Francisco Examiner? Mayor considers imposing “soda tax.” This is yet another measure to protect the public from itself, by making cokes more expensive (you see, the money raised will go to combat youth obesity, and there’s no way it’ll ever be diverted to other programs. What, you don’t believe that? What about all those anti-smoking ads you saw after the government got all those settlements with the tobacco companies? Oh, right.). Great. Still more nanny state legislation. Will politicians allow us to make any of our own choices? What’s next on the tax or prohibition list? Taxing people who wear white after Labor Day? Who chew gum and forget to bring enough for everyone? Inadequately publicized coming out parties? Misspelled banners at football games? And don’t get all smug Texas Republicans. You people are just as bad as the Democrats. Here’s a thought. Try letting adults make up their own minds about some things. Not everything. Just some things. Just a few things. And let us spend our own money instead of deciding how to spend it for us.
Back to this day. First on the agenda was to make the 45 minute drive to the Point Reyes shoreline and visit the Point Reyes Lighthouse. The Lighthouse Service, later absorbed by the Coast Guard, built this lighthouse in the late 1800s. Point Reyes was one of the most treacherous points on any American coast, with an incredibly high number of shipwrecks. The combination of fog that can suddenly appear, as well as currents and the deceptive nature of the Point Reyes coast have turned Drake’s Bay into what the Park Service’s official literature calls a “ship graveyard.” But building and maintaining a lighthouse here was difficult due to the rocky terrain and steep cliff right at the point. The lighthouse itself has been automated for some time, blasting a fog sound every 30 seconds or so. The old lighthouse is still functional. Most impressive is the massive magnifying glass used to reflect light out to sea. When I visited this place a few years ago you could get up to that level, but they have it blocked off today. Other buildings include the generation station, a cistern for catching rainwater, and the lighthouse keeper’s residence. The lighthouse has incredible views of the ocean and Drake’s Bay, of Point Reyes South Beach, and of the nearby bluffs. You could hear seals barking below (but not see them as the cliff was too steep). A baby elk was also apparently marooned on a ledge near the top of the stairs, but it didn’t seem like anyone else noticed. It was a clear day and a lot of visitors were roaming around the area enjoying the sights. Its about 320 steps from the parking lot down to the lighthouse, and a sign at the outset advertises this as the equivalent of a 30 story building. Just like the line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, going down the mountain is not the problem. The problem is coming back up. Having gained some “hiking legs” over the past two weeks, I was able to make the climb without stopping. I mention that not to point out that I’m an incredible stud (that’s a given…was there some doubt), but I continue to marvel over the things I can do after my heart surgery. So I notice things like this a lot more than I used to. The drive itself was pretty nice, passing several dairy farms, a lagoon, and “Drake’s Estero,” a relatively large inlet leading into the Bay.
After making it back to Point Reyes Station, I looked around the town and in the few shops. Point Reyes Station basically is a three block section of a three street town, but it’s the largest community in the area. Most of this area is agricultural, so a lot of the people live on farms. Highlights include Cowgirl Creamery, an excellent local cheese-making business that makes cheese right in the store that you can watch (and gives out plenty of tasty samples). I bought a wheel of “Pierce Point,” a light, mild, firm white cheese (which I devoured about half of later that night). Toby’s, a sort of Marin version of a general store, is another interesting place around town; a combination produce and sundry foods store and local interest store. I had lunch at an excellent (and apparently new) restaurant named Stellina. This place has an Italian flavor, but uses only organically grown foods and specializes in dishes with Marin County ingredients. I had a truly outstanding saffron stew, with shrimp, mussels, clams, chicken apple sausage, fingerling potatoes, chicken broth, olive oil, red chili flakes, garlic and saffron. It reminded me of yet another movie line, from Big Night, which is “to eat good food is to be close to God.” That is so true. They were playing Al Green’s Greatest Hits on the speaker, and the room had lots of windows with great light and street front views. A really fine experience.
After dropping off the cheese back at the hotel, in the cooler that Kimberly had allowed me to borrow, I headed out to the park for a brief walk on the Earthquake Trail. The San Andreas Fault runs right along Route 1 and just inside the park as it heads southeast towards San Francisco. The Earthquake Trail runs right alongside the fault line. Although you can’t actually see anything on the land itself, you can see an old fence from 1906, that the Great San Francisco Earthquake split in two and moved one section about 16 feet north. Apparently during that quake, the whole Point Reyes peninsula moved about 16 feet. They also have markers showing the fault line and various interpretative signs explaining various facts about the fault and earthquakes generally. It runs past a nice little creek, and right on the fault line I saw the second snake of the vacation. There were no snakes in Lake Tahoe or Redwoods, but already I’ve seen two in Point Reyes. I couldn’t tell what kind of snake it was, but I did put a photo of it on flickr.
After doing an in-room workout, I got changed and went back to the Station House for dinner, this time steak. Also got to catch most of the second half of the Boise State-Fresno State game on the TV at the bar. Final score Boise State 51, Fresno State 34. Was that a college football game or a 1966 AFL game? I half expected to see Joe Namath or Daryle Lamonica throwing passes to Don Maynard or Fred Biletnikoff. Hey non-BCS schools, there’s this new thing, its called defense. That’s where you get in the way of the offensive team’s player holding the ball. Same could be said for you too, Texas Tech Red Raiders. Try stopping even one kickoff or punt return for less than 10 yards.
Next—the Point Reyes Farmer’s Market and Muir Woods
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