April 5th through 10th, 2026
We got to Petaluma, California and set up our site in a lovely spot where we'd get to enjoy three weeks in one place. Petaluma is north of San Francisco and just enough outside of the craziness of the Bay Area. It's a really nice town and our site was just about perfect.
We had a lot to see and do, so Monica took four days off around the first weekend to see the sights. First, we'd spend some time in San Francisco. We headed to the Fisherman's Wharf area to check out the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. We visited the Maritime Museum first, and there wasn't much to it other than the great views of Aquatic Park Cove. Our visit was really improved, though, when we walked over to the visitor center. There was so much to read and learn about the city, and it was the perfect place for us to start our visit.
After the visitor center, we ate at Cioppino's and enjoyed our stay at Fisherman's Wharf. We even picked up some Ghirardelli chocolate. We had fabulous weather and could see Alcatraz in the distance. We'd both been to it before, so we decided to skip it this trip in favor of other sights.
The next day, we visited the Eugene O'Neill National Historical Site after getting the Jeep's windshield replaced (it's always something!). We didn't know much about the man other than he was a Nobel prize winner and a playwright. We made reservations and then met our group in the lovely town of Danville at a depot and museum, where a forest ranger took us up to the property in a national parks truck. The property and his home were up in the hills, and the area was beautiful. It was interesting to learn about him from the knowledgeable and personable ranger. A lovely, early dinner in Danville wrapped up our perfect day.
We'd been over the Golden Gate Bridge a few times now, and it was time to focus on that area of San Francisco. It started out as a rainy, gloomy day but then the sky turned blue and it was chilly but otherwise very nice. We started by going down to below the bridge and to Fort Point National Historic Site. It has an interesting history. They were going to tear it down to put the bridge up, but the architect decided it was too important to destroy so he built the bridge around it, featuring it at the base of the bridge. The fort was a very cool stop, and so was the woodsy area around the fort.
We went to the Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center that had a ton of tourists, but it had a nice view of the bridge. The coolest thing was a cross section of a bridge cable.
We drove a bit more through the big trees and scenic spots to get to the Presidio of San Francisco and the beautiful grounds around it. San Franciscans are lucky to have this huge space to get away from everything right in the city. The visitor center was nice, and everyone was very friendly.
We still had some more afternoon time left, so we drove out to Lands End, the far end of the presidio and park. The views of the water were perfect, and we liked how remote it is though there were some very cool neighborhoods nearby. That would have been enough, but we learned about what used to be there and that was icing on the cake. There used to be a big resort called the Cliff House with the Sutro Baths, a monstrous public bath house. All that remains are foundations and artifacts, but it must have been amazing in its day.
We headed back to Petaluma, stopping at the Vista Point on the other side of the bridge for the views. They were selling street corn and fresh mango and pineapple, so we ate delicious treats in the car before heading for home.
We headed back to Petaluma to relax before heading back out the next day. We saw so much during our stay that we had to break our Bay Area trip into two posts. Stay tuned for part two!
