View of SF from de Young
Saturday morning I struggled to decide out what I should do on my last day. I kind of wanted to go back to the UC Botanical Garden to see the rest, maybe go visit a museum, go shopping, or just walk around outside.
While making up my fickle mind, I drove down the Warren Freeway behind Oakland to oogle the hills and fancy houses. This is the most amazingly scenic part of east bay, it was fantastic! I discovered Piedmont, which is a really nice (read: well-to-do, well kept) area. Wandering around here lead me to Grand Lake Theater at which point the geography sudden snapped into place for me and I realized this was the end of Lake Merritt on the other side of I-580 I had seen before but not been to. It’s a pretty clean part of Oakland, disproving that all of the city is seedy.
I eventually decided I wanted to stay outdoors all day, so I headed to the Golden Gate Park in SF. I figure I need to spend at least some time over there, since otherwise I’d just run around east bay. There, I discovered the Japanese Tea Garden which was cool to walk around. Lots of fantastically manicured trees and the flowers were just beginning to bloom. Aside from the garden, I learned I could get in the observation tower at the de Young Museum for free, which I recommend as it offers a great view of the area. I would’ve like to spent a little time in the museum, but it was really too late to see much. I’ll have to do that later, I hear it’s quite nice.
I closed out the evening and trip by going to Baker Beach. The sound of the surf here was awesome. The beach is directly exposed to the greater ocean, no rocks, and is slightly curved, so the waves make a powerful crushing sound over and over. It was sunset, and there was a handful of people out. It was a great time to just sit and watch the sea.
I started driving back Saturday night. I wanted to stay so bad, but had to get going. I forget where I landed for the night, some rest area in CA or OR. Sunday morning I picked up where I left off and kept on driving. I got back to Redmond around 4 PM, wee!
