07.07.12 - Big Redwoods

The plan for today was to go to Muir Wood which is the closest place to see the Redwoods. I went down to the Ferry Building and had time to wander through the gigantic farmers market before getting a boat to Sausalito. There was so much fruit, veg, fish, cheese...even stuff I had never heard of before like lemon cucumbers, purslane, salmon candy (sweet cured salmon jerky), lions mane

mushrooms. In fact there was too much stuff and too many people; it was overwhelming. 
The boat goes across the bay to the other side of Golden Gate Bridge, which had a strip of dark cloud running the whole way along it, just sitting across the bridge. It is very windy on the water; no wonder they have the America’s Cup here. Sausalito had been described a European, clearly by someone who had not seen much of Europe. It is a little waterside town which is obviously popular with holidaying families and day trippers. The bus to Muir Wood was late and took 35 minutes so I didn’t get there until about 2pm. I met an African American family from South Carolina on the bus; parents and a daughter about my age. He had the kind of Southern drawl that makes old people sound as if they’ve got dementia and are drunk, and should just be put in a rocking chair and left on the porch. The daughter was very interesting, a teacher in Houston but had taught for a year on the Marshall Islands, a tiny cluster of island in the Pacific between the US and Japan. They were discovered by the Spanish, sold to the Germans, occupied by the Japanese and then taken over by the Americans. They are plundering their sea cucumber crops to sell to the Chinese for medicines as, even though they get paid only $2 a bag, it is much better money than the 19c a bag that they get for their coconut crops which take an immense amount of work.

Muir Woods were absolutely packed with people. There is no public bus during the week, you have to get a private tour bus, so I had chosen to come on a Saturday. If I had known I would have got there earlier and done one of the longer hikes which are presumably less populated but I had by heavy camera with me and hadn’t the time so I walked along the boardwalk and did the short loop in an hour with a stop for the remnants of a sandwich that I had bought at the farmers market. The woods are beautiful but I suppose I have been spoilt by enjoying a private wood that is peaceful and just as picturesque. These redwoods were big but not the absolutely gigantic ones that astound. There is one tree on display that is over 1,000 years old. I was glad that I’d ticked it off the list but I am a bit of a tourist snob and don’t like hanging out with big groups of fellow travellers. And one of the special fauna of the woods is a Banana Slug, so called because it is yellow and as big as a banana. I was quite happy to stick to the well trodden boardwalk.

I thought that I would have to wait around for the return bus but because the schedule was so skewy there was a bus waiting with my friends from the journey up waiting in line. I hate that embarrassing moment when you see people that you had a brief conversation with for a second time; would it be rude to not sit next to her on the trip back or was it weird to sit next to her, clinging on like a bad smell? It’s like that moment when you’ve already said goodbye to a new acquaintance but then they’re walking the same way as you, or going on the same bus so you sort of have to acknowledge them again. Awkward! Well this was the same and I decided it was better to sit next to her, on the empty bus, but she gave me a look of ‘This bus is empty why are you sitting next to me, we have exhausted all conversation, you can’t join my family holiday’ so I moved across when she conveniently left the bus to clean her shoe. We spent the rest of the trip in silence.

I wasted an hour or so reading my book by the water and then got the ferry back. There were 200 bikes on the ferry, it didn’t look like it could hold 200 people let alone 200 bikes but we all made it in. There are lots of fancy food shops in the Ferry Building so I bought myself some fancy food (like the long list of tomatoes) and headed back home for a TV dinner.

Fact for the day: There are 3 bins; one trash, one recycling and one compost. I love the compost one, it feels so satisfying to get rid of food waste properly. They even have some plastic bags that can go in the compost. The first time that I threw away my collected compost I put it straight in the wheelie bin before realising that this would make it all dirty. I thought I was going to get a mildly worded email about it from the land lady but I managed to get away with that misdemeanour.
And I just thought of a joke: What do you call old compost?...Compast.