Ron Erskine

Overnight backpackers replenish their energy with an afternoon meal at Henry Coe State Park.

It isn’t often that I learn of a state park in the Bay Area that I have never heard of before. Hidden in the foothills of the San Mateo Coast, Burleigh Murray Ranch State Park waits humbly and quietly for someone to notice.

On a recent weekday morning, two friends and I set out on what we called a guys field trip. For years, we have met weekly to do what old men do: drink coffee and talk about nothing. And we love it. We decided it was time for a road trip, a term that has a dramatically different meaning than it did forty years ago. After a fabulous meal at the Breakfast House, an inconspicuous but terrific cafe in San Carlos, we set out for Huddart County Park and a walk in the woods to burn off some of the Hollandaise sauce.

It is said that nothing can be all things to all people, but every rule has an exception. Point Reyes National Seashore is the exception to this rule. Jutting boldly into the Pacific Ocean in western Marin County, Point Reyes and its surrounding communities have something that will excite and please everyone.

He fought to blink his eyelids open against the night's crust of “sleep.” Through the cinched-down opening in the hood of his sleeping bag, he gazed up at a slate gray sky. A new day was about to begin.

THERE is more to a natural landscape than meets the eye. We stand in awed reverence beneath Yosemite Falls or on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Who wouldn't? The grandeur is overwhelming. But what about those ho-hum areas that we pass without notice? Are those places empty wasteland, or do they hold some importance beyond our ken?

There is more to a natural landscape than meets the eye. We stand in awed reverence beneath Yosemite Falls or on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Who wouldn't? The grandeur is overwhelming. But what about those ho-hum areas that we pass without notice? Are those places empty wasteland, or do they hold some importance beyond our ken?

My purpose in writing this column is in the title: Getting Out. As you recline on your sofa and read it, I hope your leg will mysteriously begin a barely perceptible twitch that ripens into a full body spasm of energetic excitement. You can't help it. You simply must snag your day pack and your low hikers and head out the door.

It was day two. Deep in the wilderness of Sequoia National Park, we stood with a ranger on the small entry porch of her backcountry cabin looking down at a map discussing alternatives to our original itinerary.

Just yesterday, I received a text from a very old friend reminding me that on this very day, 51 years ago, I saw the Beatles at the Cow Palace.