Pretty much. There are more bikes than cars on this stretch of one-way road to the Point Bonita Light House and beyond in the Marin Headlands.
The catch is that you have to ride your bike all the way up the two-way part from where the road starts near the North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.
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But otherwise, it’s a nice ride…
All you need to know about the Yelp-rated lighthouse at Point Bonita is right here.
Did the lighthouse keeper’s wife really tie up the kids on a leash when they played outside to keep them from falling into the ocean? That’s the story, anyway.
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Looks like that house might get sprayed with salt water sometimes.
See you there!
What can you see here looking north from the 17th hole of the inexpensive and much-discussed Lincoln Park Golf Club (aka “Stinkin’ Lincoln”)? Well, there’s the teeing area, of course, but you can also see the Golden Gate and the Point Bonita Lighthouse, as well the houses of Muir Beach City and a good chunk of western Marin County.
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And when you get to the green, you get a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Not too shabby for just $1-something per hole, huh?
“Until the 1840s the strait was called the “Boca del Puerto de San Francisco” (Mouth of the Port of San Francisco). On 1 July 1846, before the discovery of gold in California, the entrance acquired a new name. In his memoirs, John C. Frémont wrote, “To this Gate I gave the name of “Chrysopylae”, or “Golden Gate“; for the same reasons that the harbor of Byzantium was called Chrysoceras, or Golden Horn”
The Yerba Buena Light near the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge got automated back in 1958, so the lighthouse keeper’s residence is now being use by a U.S. Coast Guard Admiral. But the light is still shining as bright as it has for 134 years. Look for it on the right as you drive from San Francisco on the Bay Bridge.
On a rare sunny day, the light itself and the Admiral’s Pantry to the right. Click to expand:
The little lighthouse that could, the one with the smallish fifth-order Fresnel lens:
Keep on trucking…
This is the view you can get in San Francisco when you look over Golden Gate Park to see the Point Bonita Lighthouse in Marin County.
How does the de Young Museum’s inverted pyramid stand up?
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Wouldn’t it be nice to live in this light house at Point Diablo in Marin County, California? You’d have great views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, that’s for sure.
Downsides of this location include the dangers of an occasional oil spill (like we had with the Cosco Busan) and the long walk up the stairs from where you’d dock your boat.
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The upside is that getting LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification would be a piece of cake. You’d already have renewable energy and water-efficient landscaping, so making a few alterations could get easily get you certified up to silver, gold, platinum, whatever.
All that’s left to do is make an offer, move in and then meet the neighbors.
Here’s what the Lime Point Light, located right next to the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge and close to Cavallo Point, looked like back in the day, courtesy of our friends at the United States Coast Guard. Click to expand:
But technological change and the arrival of the bridge in the 1930’s eventually put this station out of business. It was no picnic working there anyway, what with the occasional freighter collision and the constant rain of orange paint chips.
This is how it looks these days, with just the fog station left (and the front gate open on this particular day, for some reason).
Sic transit gloria mundi
