D- Drive along the Californian coast

Been there... Done that 

Drive along the Californian Coast 

 Our Road trip was still a day away.  

Our Day one was dedicated to seeing the  Fascinating city of San Francisco.

The sky was overcast and there was a slight drizzle when we cruised along the Golden gate bridge.  The drizzle and the winds that accompanied them restricted our photogprahic moments, but we still managed to capture a video and some pictures  of that red iron grids geometrically placed that  has been immortalized by the CISCO logo.  

Driving along the Golden gate Bridge was like an aspirational dream come true.  It was one of those ‘Been there, done that’  moment come true. 

That summer I would commission an oil on canvas painting of the Golden gate bridge to etch that memorable trip across for a long time to come .

Muir woods   national monument was our next  stop after the Golden gate bridge.  After a buzzing city you suddenly enter a protected forest land and it feels unreal and surreal.  The silence is defeaning . The gurgling of water in the nearby brooks and the shades of the large red woods trees that suddenly cool the temperature and the ambience feels magical. It would be a shame to call this ‘ambience’ , because it is a natural forest.

 It is the only surviving primordial forest in the world . Strolling through the 1000 year old giant trees towering 260 feet high is a feat in itself. 

They are so tall that  no good camera – DSLR or otherwise can do justice in capturing them.

Giant red wood trees dominate the Muir Woods’ forest. Other species of trees are the Douglas- Fir, maple trees, the Tanbark oak and the Baylaurel.

John Muir after whom the Forest is named was a famed naturalist and thanks to his conservation efforts, muir woods as a monument remains an untouched ecosystem just 12 miles of a buzzing modern city of San Francisco.

Muir was a conversationist, philosopher, ecological thinker and a politicial  spokesman for preservation of forests and their ecosystems.  By the time he died in 1914 his writings had become a personal guide  for future environmentalist  and it would not be an exaggeration to say that he laid the foundation for the modern Environmental consciousness.

It was sunset by the time we got out of Muir woods and returned to our room in Downtown San Francisco.  

Tomorrow was going to be a long day.  The day where we would cover the drive of about half of the distance of the Road trip ... along the El Camino Real ...   

Stay tuned for ,,,,

 E – EL CAMINO REAL