San Francisco, CA –
There’s one detail that has always irked me about taking an organized tour.
I’m not talking about a tour of a specific place, where a guide is walking you through, telling you about details you otherwise wouldn’t know.
I’m talking about bus tours of cities, where you are going to multiple sights.
Yes, it’s a good way to see all of the highlights of a city in a single morning or afternoon.
But every place you stop and get off the bus, the clock is ticking.
You have a limited amount of time to see the sight before the bus takes off again.
This fact was hammered into my head on our first trip to Europe, many years ago.
We had rented a car and were driving around Scotland, staying at a series of Bed-and-Breakfasts, and while spending a couple of nights near Inverness, we had driven out to see Urquhart Castle, on the shore of Loch Ness.
After spending as much time as we wanted climbing around the ruins, we had piled back into our car and were pulling out of the parking lot, when we came across an Asian family that were in a panic.
They had overstayed their time.
They had come on a boat tour out on Inverness, and the boat had left without them.
With their luggage on it.
They were stranded, with no way to get back to Inverness, get their luggage back, or get to the train station (they had arrived from Glasgow that morning, and I don’t remember where they were supposed to go from there.)
Unfortunately, we didn’t have room for the entire family, so the Dad, Mom, and one of their kids piled into our backseat (along with our daughter), leaving the Grandmother and another kid searching for another ride to Inverness.
And I don’t think the Grandmother spoke English.
Back in Inverness, we dropped one of the parents off at the train station, and the other at the office of the tour company that offered the boat tour (I don’t remember which parent the kid went with) so they could try and salvage their trip and get their luggage back.
I don’t know what came of them, or if the Grandmother and second child ever got a ride back to town.
For all I know, the two of them could still be standing by the exit to the parking lot, many years later, looking for a ride…
Anyway, that memory keeps surfacing every time we contemplate taking any bus tour.
The fear of being left behind.
Of course, I consider myself to be a resourceful guy, and I don’t think we would be completely stranded.
I think I would come up with some way of getting ourselves back to civilization.
Or wherever it is we are calling home base at the time.
So what convinced us to sign up for a bus tour out of San Francisco to see Muir Woods?
Convenience, probably.
We were staying in San Francisco for a few days while I was attending a workshop, leaving Dore free to wander the city during the day.
And then we were staying over a couple more days after the workshop to see some sights together.
Since Dore would have already seen most of the “sights” within the city by the time I would get to join her, and we didn’t have a car, we decided to take a bus tour of the city, just for the highlights, along with a visit to Muir Woods after stopping for lunch in Sausalito.
Dore would have already seen a number of the sights at a leisurely pace, so we figured it wouldn’t be a big deal if I were gypped on time and had to look fast.
And I have to admit, it did allow us to sample one or two spots that we would come back to after the tour to spend more time visiting.
But the real goal of taking the tour was to visit Muir Woods.
Now, it probably would have been easy enough for us to just rent a car for the day and driven ourselves.
Maybe.
Even though this was on a Monday, traffic and parking for Muir Woods was a mess.
Of course, this was July, so it was peak tourist season.
And we saw people having to park at least a mile or more down the road from the park, something we didn’t have to do, because we had special parking in that area marked off for busses.
But we still had to fight through traffic to get to the park, and that took us a while.
And it cut into our time to spend in the park.
After all, we were on a schedule, and we had to make a certain ferry to take us from Sausalito back across the bay.
This meant that once we got to the park, we were down to an hour that we could spend wandering among the trees.
Or rather, only a half an hour to get lost in the woods, with another half-hour to get back to the entrance.
And this is not the type of place where I want to be looking at my watch, keeping track of the time.
No, I want to forget about time, and just wander, soaking it all in.
After all, these are redwoods that we’re wandering in.
Granted, these are not as tall as some other types of redwoods that you find elsewhere in California, but they’re still the tallest trees that I’ve ever been around.
Big enough that a couple of kids are able to climb into a hollow, fallen trunk to pose, looking out the other end.
No, this is the type of place where you want to forget about time, and spend two or three hours just wandering.
Yes, it’s true that they state that the primary trails within the park can be walked in either a half-hour, one hour, or one and a half for the longest stretch of the main trail, but this assumes that you’re spending all of your time walking, and not stopping to just look, take pictures, or to soak it all in.
Something that we’re not good at.
Even when we’re walking for exercise, we keep stopping to look at things.
It really adds to the time it takes.
And we wanted to walk the entire length of the main trail.
Oh well, maybe next time.
As it was, we had to turn back way too soon.
And in between the bridges across the creek that runs through the park, forming the three different lengths of trail.
Next time, we’re going to go on our own, arranging our own transportation.
That way we’ll be free to take our time, and strain our necks looking up to our heart’s content.
Or at least until our necks can’t take it anymore.
Hmm, I wonder how long that’ll take…
For more photos from Muir Woods, click here.
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