Where To Stay The Third Time You Come To San Francisco, Or, Saturday Morning at 11:14am

The next time you come to San Francisco, you might not want to stay here. By which I don’t mean arms-crossed-in-an-X, get-the-heck-out-of-Dodge kind of way, I mean essay a slightly different perspective. Essay used as a verb is our unusual word of the day.

For my birthday weekend we stayed at Cavallo Point, just across the San Francisco Bay via the Golden Gate Bridge.

Doesn’t get much more iconic than this.

Cavallo Point isn’t a place for city thrills, urban hills, or glamor.

It sits in the Fort Baker National Park, and several of its buildings were original to the fort itself. The history is here. Complex, as is all of America’s past, and evocative. We booked one of the historic room and were upgraded to a suite. You walk up the original, creaky wooden stairs holding a wooden bannister. No air conditioning, the way it used to be around here. And in the current climate, the lawns don’t get watered. Anti-glamor, true to world.

You come here to see the Bay and the hills around it. A short steep walk takes you from your room to the Marin side of the Golden Gate. You can’t help but imagine San Francisco 100 years ago.

I recommend the restaurant, Murray Circle. We ate outside on the porch for every meal except lunch, when we’d pick up sandwiches from the little store next to Registration.

Tuna for lunch.

Best pork I’ve had in forever. So good.

And the next day we drove a little further north to one of the Marin Headlands trailhead and went for a longer hike. Five-ish miles. Even steeper than the walk about Cavallo, even more beautiful view.

At the top of Hill 88, as it’s still called, you find more military ephemera, now gone to graffiti, become art.

There’s a lot to remember. California says hello to panting, exhilarated climbers, newly hopeful.

So do I. Have a wonderful weekend. I hope you can get outside.