San Francisco and Point Reyes National Seashore

We went to S.F. to visit our eldest son and his wife, and wandered around while they worked, for the first two days we were there.  We really enjoyed the Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park, and I got a number of flower pictures that I won't bore you with.  We climbed up to Grandview Park, that gave us a great 360 degree view of the city.

The big green swath of trees through the middle of the picture is Golden Gate Park.  It stretches for miles, from the coast, well into the city.  You can see the tiny Golden Gate bridge in the mid right side of the picture:

A better picture of the bridge:

As we came down a long staircase on the other side of the park, we looked back to see where we'd come from, and were amazed to see:

The 16th Ave. "Tiled Steps" - a tourist attraction we hadn't even been aware of.

The next day we went hiking out to Point Reyes.  It was a 9 1/2 mile round trip hike that was windy and cloudy/foggy, but neat to have accomplished.

Huge fields of wildflowers, and then one lone gathering of cypress.

Steve got a video of the elk that were right alongside the path.

Steve and I then got our rental car the next day, and headed off north.  We went back to Point Reyes, to the lighthouse there, hoping to see grey whales that were migrating back north, but without success for us.  We had nice sunny weather, so we could see this awesome beach from the hill to the lighthouse:

There were a bunch of elephant seals sunning on a beach, in another area of the Seashore:

My best shot of a male (somewhat showing his proboscis):

Next blog will be further up the California coast, and into the redwoods.

California poppies were blooming everywhere.