Third Fall
When we lived there, I referred to the city as San FranShitShow. I still call it that, though jokingly now. It’s become more of a pet name, that I say it with a certain amount of respect (and even a little love, sometimes, too) - it only seems fair for the place that formed me in so many ways.
I’ve spent almost all of the last week (and the first few days of my 28th year) adventuring in the Bay Area. Which of course meant a little time in San Francisco. So much has changed since our move home - but a lot is still the same, as though we haven’t been gone a day. The smell of the fortune cookie factory in Chinatown still draws me down Ross Alley. The homeless still break my heart while simultaneously being so in-your-face that I find myself startled again and again while we’re out and about. The scent on the breeze still oscillates between eucalyptus (intoxicating!) and trash (bleh!). And then there’s the way that I always discover something new and delightful when we’re there. This time around that discovery was oat milk lattes. Coffee without the caffeine (no jitters!), creamy without the dairy (happy belly!).
The real reason for the trip, however, was to spend three days hiking up the coast with my mom. When my family came for Thanksgiving a few years ago, they had so much fun getting to see a little more fall after all the color had left Colorado - and ever since, my mom and I have talked about going back to relish the last of this favorite season together. So when I started looking at maps for the Bay Area Ridge Trail over the summer…things just fell into place.
Basically we built ourselves a sort of hut-to-hut hike…or maybe more of an AirBNB-to-AirBNB hike if we’re being literal! Sausalito to Mill Valley. Mill Valley to Stinson Beach. Stinson Beach to Olema. Thirty-ish miles of California coast in November, all of our belongings on our backs and nothing but trail ahead.
It ended up being pure wildness, in every sense of the word. I guess having a coyote greet us at the trailhead on the first day (the somber fellow proceeded to watch as we stretched and hoisted up our packs) should have been a sign.
It was hot California sun and damp, dark California fog.
It was trailside lunches of sesame Tartine bread and Mountain Rose apples.
It was achy feet, and the constant adjustment of our 20+ pound packs.
It was an early morning cab ride to our trailhead SO terrible that we literally ran first mile of our hike in order to put it behind us (only to laugh ourselves to the point of tears that night about the whole ordeal).
It was buying way too many snacks in the search for something salty.
It was walking for miles and miles beneath the redwoods with my mama.
I’m so full-up on stories right now - but also still processing. They’ll trickle out in that way they do, I’m sure. But for now, that’s all I’ve got. A few words and this handful of pictures.
And a big old smile on my face from the remembering of it all - I’ve got that, too.
