Mill Valley Day 1 (4-22)

A couple of months back Rachel got an email from LivingSocial.com advertising an overnight stay in Mill Valley. Mill Valley is the town right off of Highway 101 on the way to Stinson Beach. Stinson Beach is one of our favorite places, so we went signed up for it. Plus, mountain bike rentals were included in the package. How could we not take advantage of that?

Coincidentally, I believe I mentioned on a previous post that I now own a rock climbing guidebook for the Bay Area.  Well, it just so happens that one of the the climbing locations featured in our guidebook is a place called Mickey's Beach, which is right next to Stinson Beach. Let's start our narrative there:

 Just before you get to Stinson Beach, heading north on the Shoreline Highway, there's a large pull-out on the west side (the side with all the water). According to the guide book, this is called the Red Rock parking lot, but there is no sign, nor did I notice any red rock. On the north side of the so called Red Rock parking lot, there's a little trail heading down towards the ocean. If you follow that trail a little ways, you'll come to this view (Well, not this exact same view, because what are the odds we'll be standing there when you get there?):

The big rock on the left side is, according to the guide book, Main Rock.

 This is the view from the top(looking north):

 As far as we can figure out, the small beach in the middle of the photo is some kind of nude beach. (No one else was there when we were, so we can neither confirm nor deny). The beach in the top of the photo is Stinson.

Although there were no nudists on the beach, there were a couple of climbers on Main Rock:

Since there were other climbers on the rock, I was too scared to try roped climbing. Instead we headed for the nude beach . . . because, you know . . . there are supposed to be some good rocks . . . for bouldering.

 So bouldering is what we did:

 We did alright on the boulders, then it was time for some chillin' on the beach:

 Here's a closer look from another angle:

 It was really fun exploring this area that we've driven right past numerous times, so on the way back to Mill Valley, we decided to do some more roadside exploration. We pulled off the road wherever it looked like there was any kind of trail and checked it out. We didn't find anything as awesome as Mickey's Beach, but it was fun.

After a quick trip to REI for a couple of pieces of climbing gear and a good dinner at the Dipsea Cafe, a cute little place we always pass on the way to Stinson, we checked into the hotel. I decided it was time to crank up the romance so we left the privacy of our hotel room and drove back towards Stinson Beach. I was hoping to watch the sun set with Rachel on top of Main Rock, but we didn't quite have enough time. Instead, we pulled over on the side of the road to get the following two shots:

Then we kept on driving to another lookout point. View to the right (north):

 View to the left (south):

 By the way, the trail in this picture is one that we had explored earlier.

We didn't make it to Main Rock before the sun set, but it was pretty much just as romantic watching it set in the minivan while driving along Highway 1. (Mainly because Rachel makes everything romantic.)

We turned around to head back to the hotel, but decided to make one more stop at another one of our happy places, the Muir Beach Overlook. From there we had a good view of the lights of San Francisco.

I was having fun using the night features of the camera, so when we got back, Rachel and I walked along a path towards the Dipsea Cafe where we had eaten dinner earlier so I could take some night shots of the restaurant's lights and their reflection in the water beside it.

Then we went back to the hotel where we listened to a podcast and ate ice cream and brownies that we bought at 7-11.