I ♥ San Francisco

San Francisco... the City by the Bay... Frisco... the Golden Gate City... or as locals call it, The City. Whatever you call it, the smells, the colors, the wind and fog, the steep hills and the street music make it a place to be remembered long after one leaves. We visited once again last weekend...

Hanging on the cable cars is, I think, my favorite form of public transportation.

... and did all the touristy things you do in San Francisco... even though we've seen them, done them, heard them or tasted them before. Inevitably, doing the same things brings back memories of previous visits. The sea lions on Pier 39 ALWAYS remind me of Janne's sixth grade Girl Scout troop's trip to that city. Having a clam chowder bread bowl ALWAYS makes me think of the time sea gulls tried to eat Jenne's bread bowl right out of her hands... before she was finished. Every where we turned was another memory waiting to be remembered. 

And then we ventured to a hidden little gem eleven miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge known as Muir Woods. It is a little known National Monument with some of the most breath-taking views I've ever seen... 

... of GIANT Redwoods! These trees are so tall... so big... so  GIANT... that by comparison I felt very little... small .... tiny. The tallest tree  in Muir Woods is 380 feet tall... and began from a seed the size of a tomato seed. Wow. Not only are they giant, they are really, really, really old. And, of course, by comparison I felt young... really, really young. And then it hit me... these trees are at least twice as old as the United States. Some are older than the Black Plague epidemic in Europe in the 1300's. Older than algebra which was invented by an Arabic scholar in 820 AD. Double wow.

The canopy of the redwoods is like a giant umbrella shading the forest floor. When the sun is angled just right, a swath of nearly blinding light penetrates the trees like a giant laser. What just a few minutes before was dark is now light... with darkness just a few feet to the right or left. And, in a few minutes, the light has moved... or is gone, once again blocked by the leafy canopy.

We saw many trees with stubby, not very attractive growths on their trunks or even the limbs. They reminded me of a REALLY BIG, not to mention ugly, wart. They are called burls and contain all the genetic code of the "parent tree." If the tree falls or is cut down, the burl will begin to sprout and grow another tree exactly like (genetically speaking) the "parent tree."  The new tree either uses the root system already established or it develops its own. What looks like a flaw, an imperfection, is actually another way to reproduce... in other words, it serves a purpose. This revelation made me think about some of my own flaws and imperfections... what purpose might they have? Hmmm... to teach me humility? Or compassion? Or perseverance? Or to rely on the Lord? 

We left "the City by the Bay" with many more memories and a list of things to do and see next time. And I'm quite sure hanging on the cable car as it careens around the corners will be one of them!