Sometimes things just do not go as planned...
We had originally planned to spend Saturday doing "touristy" things in San Francisco - Ghirardelli Square, walking along the Embarcadero, and the Ferry Building. But after waking up at 6:00am (we are naturally early risers and even more so now that Alex works on East Coast time), we decided to head out to Muir Woods and do a nice, long hike. We both have been missing traveling and thought a beautiful hike through the woods would do us well. We checked the weather (scheduled to be sunny and clear) and rented a last minute car. By 8:00am, we had picked up the car and were on our way. By 8:15, we were crossing over the Golden Gate Bridge and arriving in Marin County. At 8:30, we were making our way into the park. By this point, we realized the weather forecast may have been wrong. It was so foggy we could hardly see in any direction. While driving through the park to get to the Muir Woods Visitor Center, we kept seeing signs for "Reservations Required". Neither of us thought much of this, assuming it was for camping and overnight stays. Once we made it to the Visitor Center, we noticed there was someone checking vehicles for their PARKING RESERVATION. Well, we did not have one and asked if we could purchase one at the Visitor Center. The sweet lady informed us all parking reservations were SOLD OUT for the day and our only options would be to take an Uber into the park or to check online to see if there was still shuttle tickets available. However, from the information she had, the earliest shuttle ticket would not be until 2:00pm! Umm, oops....
It was not even 9:00am at this point, so while we are exiting the park, we see a sign for the Muir Beach Lookout and make a quick stop there. It was so foggy, you could hardly see anything from the lookout! We could hear the ocean below us, but could not really see it!
At this point, we knew we were not going to be doing our long hike this morning. We decided to run a few errands in the hopes of giving the fog some time to burn off and went to Home Goods, Target, and Michaels before grabbing lunch at the Dipsea Cafe.
After lunch, we headed back into the park to visit Muir Beach and to re-visit the lookout point. We were about to turn into Muir Beach, but there was a sign saying the parking lot was CLOSED due to the parking lot being full!
We were already on the road to the lookout, so we headed there instead. It was still pretty foggy, but not nearly as bad as it was in the morning. But it was definitely not the sunny skies we saw predicted on our weather app! I was determined to see something in the wilderness today, so even though the view was limited, we did spend some time walking around.
After leaving the lookout point, we passed back by Muir Beach again to exit the park and this time the sign indicating the parking lot was full was not there! Yay!! We pulled in and found ourselves a spot. Although there was no sun in sight and the temperature was in the high 50's, the beach was PACKED! I even saw two brave (or crazy) souls swimming in the water. You can have bonfires on the beach so there was a slightly smokey scent in the air which made me want a hotdog and a s'more! There is a short hiking trail around the beach which we walked along before jumping back in our car and heading back into the city.
I typically pride myself on being prepared and this day totally threw us for a loop! I clearly did not review the park website in detail and now have committed to memory to make sure to reserve a parking spot in advance! Although the day did not go as planned, I have gotten so much better at just going with the flow and changing our plans as needed. Traveling for a year sure helped me to adapt to this strategy! Muir Woods - I will be back and I will be prepared! : )