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I passed through this little town several times during the week I stayed in San Rafael and as I drove through for the final time Tuesday morning I parked the car and walked around town a bit (while enjoying more pastries from the Bovine Bakery!).

 

This post is partly about the little town of Marshall and partly about oysters.

Friday, July 6 I arrived at the “Marshall Store,” a small, unassuming bayside restaurant which came very highly recommended.  Their specialty is BBQ oysters, although that isn’t what I had.  I arrived at around 445 Friday afternoon and while ordering learned that they would be closing in 15 minutes at 5pm so I put in both orders, with the more complicated one to arrive after the first.  The meal was yummy, albeit pricey.  When I got home I told my Airbnb hostess where I had eaten and she said “Oh, were they dollar oysters??” to which I replied, “Oh no, they were definitely NOT dollar oysters”.  All told, with no drink but with tip, the dozen oysters set me back $ 54.79.  Now I don’t normally eat oysters (I guess I now know why…) but this was a special occasion at a place which has a great reputation.

Remember – the two keywords are small and unassuming.  The little shack with the “Closed” sign would normally be somewhere else.  As you can see, Route 1 passes just outside the front door.  This is a tiny place with mostly outdoor seating.

The double doors are to the kitchen, the white door on the right goes in to the order counter and a very small seating area.

Friday night I ate outside, in the cold wind, at the corner of the deck as seen on the extreme left of the photo below.  Most of these photos were taken Tuesday morning.

Eating outside was my choice, to get the true ambience of the experience.  I’m not whining about the cold wind, just stating a fact.  There was hardly any indoor seating anyway.

Here was the view I had Friday night as I waited for my oysters to arrive:

So I had my oysters and went on about my business.

As I drove through Marshall Tuesday morning on my way north to Ukiah I stopped at a little park before getting to the town of Marshall.  It was there that I saw these signs:

And here was the Bay the signs were warning about.  Tomales Bay.

The restaurant sits along Tomales Bay, with the land in the distance being part of the Point Reyes National Seashore (which I have been to but haven’t posted anything about yet).  Further up the road was this establishment, which supplies the Marshall Store:

Now I don’t know exactly where they get their oysters but I saw some boats getting ready to harvest some oysters just up the road on Friday morning….

This was a small residence and dock before I got to the restaurant.

Now I feel fine, and I’m not making any accusations, but I think I may be done with oysters for a while…

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Further up the road, but still in Marshall, was this establishment – which was getting ready to open for lunch:

Across Route 1 from this establishment sat this boat, the “Black Pearl,” which looks like it has seen better days…

 

 

Tuesday as I drove north up Route 1 from Point Reyes, CA I went through the little town of Tomales.  This is a classic “blink and you’ll miss it”  American town.

This is the William Tell House, where a sign on the front door advises would-be patrons that it is closed indefinitely, sorry for the inconvenience.  That is a restaurant fixtures truck parked next to my car so evidently they are making some upgrades.

Next to that building is one mysteriously labeled “Not A Bank”:

And if you don’t want to pull a muscle in your neck looking up, the door makes it very clear:

Perhaps they got tired of getting robbed?  At first I thought someone cleverly deleted letters from First National Bank of Tomales but laying in bed this morning it occurred to be that that sequence of letters wouldn’t make sense.  Oh well, keep me in suspense.

Next door is the Continental Inn, which seems to be doing quite well.

And across the street is the General Store and the Post Office:

There were a few small shops on the other side of Route 1 but the morning sun was behind them, making pictures difficult.

Route 1 curved inland for a short while after Tomales and then the coast started to get interesting (see Morning/Early Afternoon/Late Afternoon posts which follow).

Saw this about 20 minutes ago as I drove north on scenic Route 128 between Philo and Navarro, California. I knocked on the door at the house and spoke with the woman who lives there. She said that, unfortunately, it has gotten used too often the last few years.

UPDATE – I hadn’t noticed it yesterday but this burnt-out hill is only 2 1/2 miles from the woman’s house:

Tuesday I drove from where I had been staying in San Rafael, CA north to Ukiah, CA.  Much of the drive was along US Route 1 which, in many places, runs right along the coast.  Once I reached Route 1 in Point Reyes it was roughly 100 miles north to Manchester, where I had to turn and head inland towards Ukiah.  Here are some of the things I saw throughout the day:

And if wildfires and earthquakes aren’t enough to keep you on your toes, there’s always this.  If fire doesn’t get you, water might.

This was the view from the deck (and practically from my table) at the restaurant I went to for lunch.  The Jenner Inn, which came highly recommended, has new ownership and is now only open for dinner.  I went across the road to the Jenner Post Office and the woman working there recommended another place up the road.  It was an excellent choice.

This is a three shot panorama from right to left.  This is actually the Russian River draining into the Pacific.

 

Tuesday I drove from where I had been staying in San Rafael, CA north to Ukiah, CA. Much of the drive was along US Route 1 which, in many places, runs right along the coast. Once I reached Route 1 in Point Reyes it was roughly 100 miles north to Manchester, where I had to turn and head inland towards Ukiah. Here are some of the things I saw throughout the day:

After having lunch in Jenner I continued up the coast towards Manchester. I actually backtracked a little ways to some of the more interesting things I had seen to take a break and just watch the birds fly and sit and listen to the ocean. It was INCREDIBLY windy – a very stiff, steady wind (in North Carolina we often give them names…). Believe me, at times it was hard to just stand and hold the camera out in front of me. I once had a client in North Carolina who came to our office when it was extremely windy in Durham and commented “I don’t know how little people stay on the ground”. I was worried that the constant movement might make my pictures blurry but fortunately they turned out ok. Even with full sun the temperature was only 60 degrees which made the wind chill about 10 below. It really didn’t feel all that cold, even though I was only wearing shortpants and a t-shirt.

Below is the same rock formation seen at the top of the first photo of this post. When I drove up the road a short ways from where I had been parked I noticed it had a big hole through it. Some of the formations in the next post (Late Afternoon) also have such holes, creating an arch above them.

This is a beach called Goat Rock. If you look closely you’ll see vehicles parked along the beach access area.

As I was driving back out to the main road I noticed this phenomenon to the south. If you look very closely a little right of center you’ll see a “cloud” rising up from the ocean surface and going towards land. I tracked down a lifeguard who I had seen driving from beach to beach and asked him what it was. It is fog forming. I could see a layer of fog out at sea (which oddly looked white while wearing my sunglasses but gray when I took them off) and while I could clearly see this white cloud of fog forming near the coast with my sunglasses on it was more difficult to see without them (and in the photo).

Looking north up Highway 1 I could see that this was where the road was going to take me next.

And this was the the view looking back down at where I had just come from.

Looking north this was the hill above the road:

And as the hill descends to the ocean:

Tuesday I drove from where I had been staying in San Rafael, CA north to Ukiah, CA.  Much of the drive was along US Route 1 which, in many places, runs right along the coast.  Once I reached Route 1 in Point Reyes it was roughly 100 miles north to Manchester, where I had to turn and head inland towards Ukiah.  Here are some of the things I saw throughout the day:

This is the Point Arena lighthouse.  It closed about an hour before I got there but I am hoping to get back there on Thursday to get a closer look.

Monday was my last full day in the San Francisco area and I rode one of the Golden Gate ferries over to the city.  The ferry station parking lot was full but fortunately I could find free street parking nearby (the same place I had parked the other day when I took a photo of the “Mendocino” arriving) and just barely caught the 940am ferry.  Once in the city I walked to the Museum of Modern Art and spent about two hours walking the 7 floors of exhibits.  My Fitbit informed me I had my 10,000 steps in for the day as I was walking back to the ferry station.  Here are a few photos from the morning ride over to the city:

I leave San Rafael later this morning to resume my drive north up the California coast.  I’ll be spending the next three nights in Ukiah, California (inland a bit) and hope to finish posting many of the pictures I took in this area while I’m up there.  I plan to just take my time and meander up the coast, eventually all the way to the Canadian border.

Thursday I ventured in to Sausalito for the first time.  Sausalito is located along the shore of Richardson Bay, north of the Golden Gate Bridge.  There are many neat (and expensive) restaurants in town, as well as some beautiful homes.  There is also a huge marina housing a wide variety of boats.

Crowds gathered along the marina to watch this guy work.  It was fascinating to watch him raise and lower the big poles (extreme right of photo, and another at the far end of the platform) to anchor his platform and use the arm of the huge backhoe-type machine to position his rig.  He was apparently scraping the bottom of the Bay to provide additional clearance for large boats to dock.  His trusty dog had a wonderful time scurrying along his platform chasing seagulls and watching him raise and lower the mechanical arm and dump water and mud.

Now this is what I call a true houseboat!

And here is another one:

I hope these mobile homes don’t get too mobile…..

A good reason to come to Sausalito in December:

When I left Sausalito to drive to my next destination I discovered that it actually wraps around the southeast corner of the peninsula giving a great view of downtown San Francisco and Alcatraz Island.  I didn’t have time to take more pictures from this vantage point but returned on Sunday to get more photos which I will post later.

Here is the city skyline.  You can see the iconic TransAmerica Pyramid and to it’s right the new Salesforce tower, which will soon be the tallest building west of the Mississippi.  At the far left is Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill.

I was hoping to make it out to Alcatraz for a tour but didn’t make a reservation (and tours are booked through the end of July) so it will have to wait for my next trip to the area.

One of the more interesting things to see in Sausalito is the Bay Model, constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the mid-1950’s.  This 1.5 acre hydraulic scale model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta was designed to help scientists and engineers study the effect of various weather and man-made scenarios on the local environment.  Little metal strips are scattered throughout the model to help accurately simulate tides and the flow of water.  With the advent of computer-assisted technology this model is no longer used.

Here is a small (dry) sample of what the Model looks like up close:

And here are some photos of the actual Model.  It is housed indoors in a large building which covers more than two acres:

There are little signs indicating where cities, bridges and various landmarks are:

If you look closely there are two people standing just to the right of center in the following photo:

There are also large signs hanging overhead which name the general regions of the area:

I went over this bridge (the real one) Thursday morning when I drove from San Rafael over to Berkeley: