What's up with the Drum's?: Angel Island and Muir Woods

View from Angel Island

We took a day trip to Angel Island and Muir Woods. Here is what we found....

Angel Island is an island located in the San Francisco Bay. It can only be accessed by boat. So....we took a ferry from Tiburon, which is a small town on the north side of San Fran, across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a beautiful weather day and we could see the city, Alcatraz, the GG Bridge and hundreds of sail boats enjoying the breeze as we crossed the bay. We learned that Angel Island is often referred to as the 'Ellis Island of the West'. However, other than the fact that immigrants were housed there, the 2 places are not so similar. Angel island has some bad history as a place where new Asian arrivals were processed and held while the government determined if they would be allowed to enter the U.S..

Ultimately, most were allowed to come in to our country, but it is sobering to see what they went through to start a life here. After visiting the immigration center, we hiked around the (very mountainous) island and took in the many beautiful vistas.

Back to shore and a short drive away, is Muir Woods National Monument area. It is a forest of giant redwood trees.

They are awesome to see and we felt so small walking the trail around them. The picture on the left here is the view looking up into one of those giants! It was very cool. Further up the coast of California is a forest of trees that is home to even larger trees...hard to imagine that, but there, you can drive a car through the base of the tree!
We read, on one of the posted information stations, that the seeds of these redwoods come from a pine cone about the size of your thumb. Inside the pine cone there are many tiny seeds. Amazing really.