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Jacob
Jacob
This a continuation of Part 1 of the 2020 Vacation. If you have not read Part 1 I would highly recommend you do so.
After we left Death Valley we would head south towards California-178 to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This would lead us to Bakersfield, California. We would stay a night here, there is nothing in Bakersfield that we want to see so this would just be a nice break from all the driving. The next morning we would be heading to the Pacific Coast and Monterey, California. Later, I would add Pinnacles National Park to our growing list of National Parks. It is conveniently located between Bakersfield and Monterey. We would spend the night in Monterey going to the beach for that night.
The next day we would be driving up the Pacific Coast Highway towards San Francisco. We would be taking the most scenic parts of the highway, this was something that mom was really looking forward to. We decided that we would stay away from the city in San Rafael. That night we would visit a section of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area north of the bridge to watch the sunset. The location has excellent views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Pacific Ocean. The next day is a full day exploring San Francisco.
I planned the day to go out to our furthest point of interest and then work our way back to the hotel. The first thing we wanted to do was go to Alcatraz Island. We would take an early tour to the islands. Mom and Dad have been there several times already but my brother and I had not. It would be cool to see such an infamous place. Alcatraz Island is a part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and therefore administered by the National Parks Service. We would then return and explore the waterfront of San Francisco. Another cool place we wanted to see was Fort Point. If you look at pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge on the south side you will see an arch bridge. Under that arch is an old fort built for World War 2. The arch was built so they did not have to destroy the historic fort. The fort looks awesome as well as being under the Golden Gate Bridge.
For the second half of our day in San Francisco we would head back across the golden gate to Point Reyes National Seashore. This location, also administered by the National Parks Service, has some of the best views of the Pacific Ocean along the entire west coast. You can also see sea lions from some of the vistas. There is also a cool lighthouse that you can visit on the actual Point Reyes. Our final point of interest would be Muir Woods National Monument. This is a place north of the Golden Gate in a massive grove of Redwood trees. Redwood trees are the tallest trees in the world going to over three-hundred feet tall. It is also something I want to see because I love John Muir. After Muir woods we were going to head back to the hotel. The next day we were going to head to Yosemite National Park for the big part of our trip.
In Part 3 I will go into detail about planning hikes and things to see in Yosemite National Park as well as our journey home from Yosemite.
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