The Ferry from Oakland and San Francisco

8/18/10
I took a ferry from Alameda to San Francisco, then another ferry from San Francisco to Larkspur.  If you happen to be in Oakland, and want to get to San Francisco, I would recommend taking the ferry from Alameda, so long as you don’t want a car in San Francisco.  It only cost $6.50, which is competitive with the Bart, and it took about 20 minutes, from Bay Farm Island to San Francisco’s Ferry docks.  The employees were very nice, and it was possible to watch as I crossed the bay.  San Francisco is quite beautiful from that perspective.  The San Francisco to Larkspur ferry was the same:  very pleasant people and beautiful scenery.  In this case, it was watching the hills and greenery of the upper peninsula approach.

Getting out of Larkspur, once I disembarked from the ferry was much more of a trick--especially since I didn’t seem to be in Larkspur.  I found myself in Corte Madera, which is a very nice community, but not where I thought I would disembark from the Larkspur Ferry.  Thank God for the fire department! The fire fighters printed up directions that got me from the east side of the peninsula to the west side, where I found the Samuel P. Taylor State Park and the continuation of my route north.

Samuel P. Taylor State Park was a real treat.  It is set in a forest which is partially made up of redwoods.  Redwoods are just as beautiful as I have always heard they are, soaring up to massive heights.  The hiker/biker campsite was up a path that was inaccessible to cars, isolated from the rest of the campgrounds.  I set my tent up on a hill all by itself and slept surrounded by redwoods and silence.

The next morning, I took a bike path through the park in order to reach highway 1 and continue my trek up the coast.  The bike path is surrounded by trees and seems isolated from the rest of the world.  I could imagine that I was alone, riding my bike through an empty world.  Sometimes, the trees actually lean in to each other over the path--the one on the right leans to the left, and the one on the left leans to the right--just as if they were having some secret conversation, right over our heads.

Beautiful!