11.11 miles.... and still standing!

OK so its a little blurry... But what this pedometer says is 11.112 miles... That's miles folks! Who would have thunk it... You realize of course that, on a single day during the walk I will be walking 20 miles...so this is over half way!


Today while my husband was off sailing, I was off walking. You have to understand any walking from my house is a commitment. Its up a pretty steep hill, but there's a shortcut on a trail that leads to the school. I knew down would be easy... but up? Heck if I am walking 60 miles in and around SF I better get hill prepared! So off I went.
The above photos are from the trail leading down from Marinview to the school.

Walking along the creek, you pass the log cabin. This is a great resource for Tam Valley. On warm Summer evenings we have "Creekside Fridays." A band and food and a great time to connect with neighbors. Tam Valley the little step sister of Mill Valley, has A LOT going for it.

Following the creek a little further you pass under the bridge by the Dipsea Restaurant and eventually you will join up with the very popular walking, running and biking trail that leads to Sausalito. It was busy, with dogs and people , but if you follow the rules of the road, there is room for everyone.

Continue on under 101 and you are to the Sea Plane! For one of my birthdays my husband treated me to a seaplane ride. If you have never done that, it is well worth it. It makes me excited now to know I am going to walk to some of the places we saw, like Alpine Lake, Bon Tempe Reservoir and trails in Point Reyes.


From here I can see the houseboats. I know that my rest stop is almost there! But there were some cool birds hanging out on the shore so I tried to snap a pic. I noticed...if you want to take photos of birds, don't be walking with ice in your bottles. Clank! Clank! It's probably not a good idea to walk with any ice in those bottles, except for scaring mountain lions, I cannot think of any benefits to it!

What a welcome break. Sitting on the deck, sipping some cool water, chatting with my good friend. Somehow in the past several years, I didn't think I could spare the time on a Saturday to do anything for ME. It was work, or work, or other obligations. It feels as if, by taking this time to walk, this time on MY agenda, somehow I have more time for everything else. I am not as tired, I am certainly more optimistic. What a gift I feel I have been given. So it wasn't surprising when I left the house boat I decided to walk further. I set my new goal as the Sausalito Yacht club. I stopped at Molly Stones to pick up lunch, and off I went...

















This part of the waterfront is really interesting. Here were the old shipyards. Most recently from WWII. Many of the buildings have been converted to office space. There are many artists who have studios, marine related business, and even the BAY MODEL. This is a working model of the bay that studies the tides and geography of the bay itself. They run scenarios of what would happen if there was a leaky oil tanker for example... Run by the Army Corp of Engineers, if you haven't stopped by be sure to.

Making the turn toward the traditional center of Sausalito, you can see tourists bustling about. It reminded me of when we had a small boat named Thalassa. She had a berth right below what was then Flynn's Landing. People could come and picnic on our boat leaving potato chips and stuff in the cockpit. We were not too happy about that, but you would have to imagine what a wonderful place for some tourist to sit and take in Sausalito - on a boat, in a marina. Just wish they would have cleaned up after themselves! Things have changed. Flynn's is gone, and the "Cat and the Fiddle" that followed is gone as well. There's a lease sign in the window, and Thalassa now is off the Corte Madera Creek. Some things stay the same. Glenn was off racing, and I was...not...but now... I wasn't WORKING...I was walking. (OK I did take about 8 phone calls on the walk)
As I make the turn for the club I saw a sign for an estate sale. My associate Susan had been working on this sale forever! The Sausalito Woman's Club's estate sale puts other's to shame. They have some seriously GOOD stuff! I think it was a lucky thing all I had was a fanny pack. But the pack was big enough to stuff my purchase of a sweet Asian keepsake holder safely inside. After making a quick purchase, I sat in the park and watched the vibrant scene. Tourists snapping pictures, the Ferry coming and going, and seagulls hoping for a forgotten piece of lunch. By the time I finished I was revived enough for the walk back, still so glad to know there was a rest stop ahead at the houseboat!

Houseboat people have reputations for marching to a different drummer, but it is unfair to paint the whole community with the same broad brush. There are many artists who live on houseboats, authors, producers, people involved in marine industries. The boats are as unique as the owners. There are tricked out houseboats, even one of which looks like the Taj Majal and there are ...."rustic" ones as well. The mailboxes below are from Galilee Harbor. This beautiful dock is at Gate 6 1/2
By friend offered to drive me back home, but I looked at my pedometer and it said 8.5 miles. That's awfully close to 10 isn't it. I knew the last part of the walk would be demanding, but I also knew I would feel like I had missed an opportunity if I stopped now, so after a nice iced water.... I was off again for the last leg.


NOW that I only had water...no ice in the bottles, I got close enough to snap this picture. My brother Ken could tell you what kind of bird this is... to me it was just cool.

At the base of the trail leading up from the school there is a sculpture made of tiles. This was new since our daughters went to school there. I would guess Tia had something to do with it. It was unexpected and made me smile.

I was concentrating on the rest of the walk (this explains the lack of pictures...) I ran into a couple of neighbors and stopped to talk. It's great to tell people about what I am doing. It's my hope that with each step I take, we all are a little bit closer to the most amazing of goals, a world without cancer. At the end of the walk I had two blisters, an achy hip and a smile on my face...and quickly, I took my last photo of the day and ran to jump in the shower.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED !

Ps... on the topic of $$$$ I am almost 1/2 of the way to my personal goal.

It will be great when I hit it then... on to the team.

When looking up the "Are we there yet?" SF team, please be generous to Allison Welch, Patti Bott, Jill Lamont and Barbara Bryant! We each need to reach $2300 to walk!!! Let's make our team the ONE that brought in just enough to make the difference. We want to be the support that helps the researcher find the answer to CURING CANCER IN OUR LIFETIME