We left early for the 2 hour drive to the shuttle parking lot to catch the 10:30 bus we had reserved on Thursday. The signage was not that great, and we parked in the wrong lot, but we made it to the shuttle stop on time. The shuttle ride to the park was an adventure since the route along CA1 to the park road is narrow and VERY winding. The park road itself has two places where it goes down to one lane due to washed out sections of road. This park is so over loved by the public, they have to limit access. Even with limits, the park was over run with people when we arrived. The visitor center is very small with very few exhibits and no park movie. We collected our 53rd Passport Stamp,and looked through the gift store. This is a very small park that exists to protect 4 stands of very old redwoods. The area in the park was never logged, but the land in the surrounding state park was logged in the early 1900s before the state park was established. The hiking options are pretty limited. We took the two mile loop trail that took us through the four stands of old growth. But you were tripping over people all the time. But a walk through these old giants is calming and inspiring at the same time. After our walk (really can’t call it a hike), we checked out the larger gift shop next to the café, but did not find anything we were willing to haul around with us for months. So we took the shuttle back to the truck. Looking over the map, we decided to take the long way back to the Wanderer. So we drove through Sausalito to Headlands park where we walked around the old Point Cavallo coastal artillery fortifications. It was a beautiful sunny day and the bay was full of sailboats. From the point, there were beautiful views of the bay, San Francisco, and the Golden Gate Bridge. We then drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, cut through downtown San Francisco (yes we saw homeless people sleep on the sidewalks) to the Oakland Bridge before heading back to the Wanderer.
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| Entrance Sign to Muir Woods National Monument |
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| Old Growth Trees (over 900 years old) |
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| San Francisco from Point Cavallo |
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| Golden Gate Bridge |
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