Labor Day weekend adventure Part 1 - Muir Beach coastal trail hike

We managed to pull together a last-minute family getaway for Labor Day weekend to take advantage of the extra day off, and it was a revelation. We actually really enjoyed ourselves, just the three of us, and were glad to have Valerie along for the fun. We even stayed in one hotel room together and it worked out all right. I was so relieved!  We have had some rough experiences traveling with her in the past. She gets too excited to sleep with us in the same room, and when she finally does fall asleep she makes a lot of noise, keeping me awake. Not to mention frequent, unpredictable meltdowns. But for the most part she did really well on this trip.

We packed up Saturday morning and headed north over the Golden Gate bridge to Muir Beach for a hike with some of the Stanford fellows. The traffic was excruciating through the city and what should have been an hour and 15 minute drive took about 2 hours, but we made it! And miraculously, everyone in the group arrived at the exact same time, and we lucked into an amazing parking spot in a completely packed lot.

Side note: driving and finding parking everywhere in the bay area is infuriating.  It's almost like a lot of people live here and visit here and you might want lots of parking at popular tourist destinations... Anyway.

It was the most perfectly clear, gorgeous sunny day at the beach and on the hike. If I could have done anything different this day I would have planned to spend more time at the beach because we definitely have a beach baby.  We ate our picnic lunches on the beach first, and Valerie was in heaven. She stripped her clothes off, raced to the water and was the picture of pure joy. She wanted to stay and play in the surf all day. We had to tear her away from the water, brush the sand off and get her dressed again so we could start hiking.

 At first we took a wrong turn and walked through Green Gulch farm trying to find the coastal trail, but after some wandering, we got back on track and found our way upwards.

What an incredible view we found of the bay, blue skies and towns below. A local we ran into at the overlook told us it was the best day he's ever seen up there. It's usually too foggy to see much but we lucked out big time and took lots of pictures.

Then it was time to head back down to the beach. All the strong men in the group took turns carrying Valerie on their shoulders for most of the hike. Thank goodness for them! We ended up covering probably close to seven miles, with a few steep climbs, so Rich was very grateful for all the help.

We were also extremely thankful that she was in great spirits the entire time. She chatted away about any and everything, got to know our new friends, and was a joy to have along. I may have brought along a few lollipops and fruit snacks to keep her happy, which was astonishingly effective. She recently told me all she wants for Christmas from Santa are lollipops and fruit snacks. Gotta love it. Santa will be more than happy to oblige.

We decided the perfect finale to our strenuous hike would be a pitcher of beer and some fries at the pelican inn. We laid out our beach towels on their lawn and enjoyed tasty cold beer and salty fries with Shri and Hamsa since the rest of the group had to get going. There were lots of people there and a long wait for the beer with just one bartender, but it was worth the wait, and Valerie got to run around on the lawn while we relaxed, which was perfect.

It was an incredibly fun, busy, exhausting, beautiful and memorable day, the best way to kick off the long weekend!