Day 12 - Thursday, April 1 - to San Francisco

Today we said goodbye to the wonderful house at Cascadel. It has been a lovely relaxed house in a beautiful environment and we have enjoyed exploring the local area as well as Yosemite. You could stay here for six months and not get close to visiting all the spectacular places and walking some of the trails in this area. Many were still closed because the snow had not yet melted.
We then set off for San Francisco - about a four-hour drive back through the San Joaquin Valley. The rich agricultural region again impressed - we passed miles and miles of nut and fruit orchards with perfectly straight lines of trees that stretched as far as the eye could see. I haven’t seen anything like the scale of these operations before. We also saw some more of the huge dairy farms and huge expanses of crops and lucerne for feeding to the cows.
We then travelled up through the hills and into San Francisco. The eastern side of these hills was literally covered in wind farms. There wasn’t a tree in sight but the wind farms and the accompanying power pylons were like forests on the side of the hill.
We have all been amazed by the American houses and the way they are built to consume power. Both the houses we have stayed in have been poorly insulated and basically designed to have the air conditioning (whether cooling in LA or warming in Cascadel) operating all the time. They are also designed to consume water - with huge bathrooms (though in Cascadel they did have water saving shower heads).
Our final destination today was the house at Muir Beach - which is north of San Francisco. We didn’t go over the Golden Gate Bridge but the Bay Bridge to get here. The whole bay area was beautiful - and the suburbs of San Francisco reminded me a lot of Sydney with the undulating streets leading down to the bay.
Muir Beach is about 30 minutes north. The road winds around one of the bay inlets until it comes around to the ocean.
This house is spectacular. It sits atop the ridge and looks out onto the Pacific Ocean and back across to San Francisco. It is beautifully set up with loads of skylights and windows (double glazed) to let in light. Both the main bedrooms have been designed with double doors that can be opened into the main living area to look out across the ocean view.
It was bright and sunny but the wind was very cold when we arrived and we walked to the beach and had a look around. We then spent time just watching from the living area - with Pacific gulls and hawks circling around and even a little hummingbird coming onto the deck. We could also see the giant container ships making their way into the bay. At night the lights of San Francisco sparkled across the water.
We had dinner at the only commercial establishment at Muir Beach - the Pelican Inn, which is an English pub. The food was pricey and not that great but the atmosphere was good.
Carlene