August 13 - Conzelman Road, Marin Headlands

Lodging: Mill Valley, CA

I am so grateful for all of the wonderful blessings that today brought. I have been touched by the kindness of strangers so many times on this trip. Today my big treat was to ride the Conzelman Road near Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands just north of San Francisco. I did the road by car several years ago and again last year on my bike. It was one of my “must dos” for this trip. The reason the road is so cool is that it hugs the shoreline of the San Francisco Bay Area with views of the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s also a real adrenaline producing ride because it is so steep. When you take off on the road you feel like you are going to fly into the ocean (see photo of cool sign with warning about steep grade). Let’s just say I’m glad I got new brakes in Colorado! In any case, I was so excited about doing the ride today and hoped to get a good photo of me on the bike with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. The problem is that most of the vista overlook points have fences that obscure the view of the bridge. So I went to the very end of the road and found one spot with a pretty good view but the pavement the bike was on was a little too low to get a good shot. This guy saw what I was trying to do and came over and told me he thought the bike should be on the walking path close to the cliff. I told him I wasn’t sure how I could do that because the path was on the other side of a small ditch. So he plotted out a path for me going through a parking space and down a short dirt path. I told him it would take me awhile and he said he wasn’t in a rush. Then he started telling me how to line up the bike and how to sit on it and took several pictures. It turns out he is a photographer and just wanted to help me get the best shot of the bike! He spent about a half an hour helping me. I feel so blessed by his generosity. It was inspiring to be on the receiving end of such kindness. It was also just so nice that the weather was so beautiful. Apparently it has been foggy for about a week and today was the first really sunny day. So a total win all around!