Is not the road to a destination often more interesting than the destination? We say that, but is it? Not always, perhaps; the road out of lost hope for example.

The journey to the Lighthouse at Pt. Bonita, the getting there is the thing.

This lighthouse featured the first foghorn to roar and blare on the West Coast, so that a pilot on a ship’s bridge seeing nothing at all, had a sense of the narrows.

And so to get to the lighthouse, you follow the coastal route, which starts at the northern end of the Golden Bridge and winds along the Headland on that narrow road along the edge of a cliff, with few barriers. You keep going, past the World War II bunkers and then you come upon the trail head.
The short, steep pathway takes you down to the hand-carved tunnel, framed in bright red ironized stone, etched with gold veins.

The tunnel is dark, wet and medieval smelling, and when you come out there’s a suspension footbridge above the furious waves. And now here you are at the lighthouse, with its beaming Fresnel lens, which can be seen 18-miles away. You wonder how anyone could build a lighthouse on such a perilous point.
In 1877, the Pt. Bonita lighthouse was moved to its current location because the original place was often too obscured by fog for the light to be visible from the bay. The story goes that the lighthouse keeper had to have his kids tied up on the leash so they wouldn’t be blown away.

It is one of the most dramatic places around San Francisco. I see it as a symbol of the way life works, the pathway that encourages you to overcome a dark tunnel, a fragile bridge, all to reach the beautiful point with the light. But even when you reach the point, you could still be blown away, you could still be lost at the very point of reaching your destination, and so you must be mindful and watch for a supportive hand.