It's Always Sunny in LA: Bay Area Adventures: Muir Woods State Park

Back in March when I learned my international friend Bernadette was coming to visit, I was determined to show her something she'd never seen before. Yes, we took her to the Golden Gate Bridge, but we had three more days and I wanted to do something new for both of us. I decided to take her to Muir Woods State Park, located over the GGB in Marin County, north of San Francisco. Besides being a beautiful nature area full of hiking trails and even beaches, Muir Woods is also home to the southernmost forest of Redwood trees in the US. And since Redwood trees only grow on the coast of California, this is the southernmost Redwood forest in the world.

As someone who was born and raised in Germany and had just spent the last few years of her life in New Zealand, I was sure Bernadette had never seen a Redwood before, and was excited to show her these incredibly amazing trees. Now, I'm not really a "nature freak" per se, but something about the Redwoods just totally fascinates me. As my Grannie would say, some Redwoods are "older than Christ," and you have to respect and admire anything that can literally live over 2,000 years. Not to mention grow as tall as 30 stories high while also smelling amazing.

In high school a friend of mine sent me a postcard from the actual Redwood National Forest (located about 8 hours north of SF). The postcard itself was made out of a very very thin piece of Redwood bark, and to this day, more than 10 years later, it still smells faintly like Redwoods. I was not disappointed to be greeted by that exact smell when we got out of the car and entered Muir Woods.

We walked through the grove of trees on a raised deck-like path. Bernadette and I both took a million pictures of the gargantuan trees, and took several deep deep breaths of the deliciously fresh air. After we turned back, we happened upon a group of tourists and a guide, who was leading a "tree talk." We listened for a few minutes and my nerdy self was loving it. We learned some really awesome trivia, most notably 1) Redwood bark can grow up to 2 feet thick, thus being a natural defense against predators and 2) The bark secretes tannin, which is a natural bug repellant. So while many trees will secrete sap, and thus attract insects like termites and even birds, all those little pests leave Redwoods alone.

After we got back to the car, we drove down to Sausalito and spent the afternoon walking on the boardwalk, and treated ourselves to some fresh seafood. It was a lovely day, and San Francisco did not disappoint with another sunny day for my visitor!