Day 2 - On our way to the MMC

Our second day in the Bay Area took us out of Berkeley and into the area known as the Marin Headlands. But first, we picked up some snacks at another location of Andronico's (this is the one on University Ave). This store was not as big as the one on Shattuck. I was disappointed because their deli section was much smaller and they didn't have what I was looking for but no worries since we found other items for lunch...

We loaded up on bread, fruit, deli meat and cheese before heading off...
Bert wore one of his favorite shirts, the one emblazoned with SPAM ($7 at Target I believe). It never fails to elicit comments from people whenever he wears it. Mostly good comments. Here he is cleaning our windshield. After the marathon drive up to Berkeley, the windshield was a grody Jackson Pollock'd glass canvas for bug guts!

I read about this place, the Marine Mammal Center in a book about fun and (mostly) free things to see and do in the Bay Area. We are not big on amusement parks like Disneyland, Legoland, SeaWorld, etc. We tend to choose places that have more educational meaning to them while still being fun and kid friendly. When I read about the MMC, I shared the info with TC who was totally gung-ho for visiting. The Center is basically a hospital that rehabilitates injured sea mammals before releasing them to the wild (if possible). It's open to the public and yes, it was free.

We got to use our Fast Trak transponder (used mainly for the 125 toll road down in Chula Vista) up here on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge which was built in in 1956 and is five miles long...

Top level heads into Marin, Sausalito, and San Rafael. The bottom level heads back to Richmond...

As we drove through the rural roads, the weather took a sharp turn into chilly fogginess...

We saw a lot of cyclists and joggers on our way...

We had to wait about five minutes for opposing traffic to pass through the Waldo Tunnel.

(info below from wikipedia's entry on Waldo Grade):

"[The Tunnel] is named after Waldo Point along Richardson Bay between Sausalito and Mill Valley. Waldo Point is named after William Waldo, who ran unsuccessfully as a Whig candidate for governor of California in 1853.


The first bore of the tunnel was completed in 1937 and the second in 1954. The archways at the ends of the bores were painted in rainbows by a Caltrans employee, Robert Halligan, and for this reason the tunnel is occasionally referred to as the Rainbow Tunnel."

Next up, the MMC...