The Morphy Visit: Day 13 - Marin

Up high, on top of a rounded hill a small stone bench sits carved into a rocky outcrop. On the bench, a plaque reads: "Give me these hills and the friends I love. I ask no other heaven." Every time we come to this place, Rai, we feel the same way.
The bench was built in honor of Richard Festus O'Rourke who, in his 70s and 80s, maintained trails in this still wild and windswept land of hills and forests that divides San Francisco from the inhabited parts of Marin County.
Almost every time we drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, we end up at this spot. Even with the hundreds of trails, dozens of waterfalls and lakes, and the beautiful forests that we visit and hike to in the Mt.Tamalpais foothills, this very spot is still on of our favorites.
Called the 'Edge of the World', the lookout at O'Rourke's Bench feels like it. All around, the hills drop off abruptly. To the west, an incredible panaroma of the Pacific Ocean far, far below and to the north more hills, smaller hills, fade into the distance before the rusty color of the Golden Gate Bridge can be seen, the gateway to San Francisco whose downtown skyscrapers look like tiny white trees in the distance, blending with the green of the redwoods and pines in the valleys of the nearby hills.
Sitting on O'Rourke's Bench we always feel full of longing for a simpler life, a stronger connection to the earth around us. Every time we have someone visiting from out of town, we take them to this edge of the world to share our love and appreciation for the part of the world we are grateful to call home.
Yesterday, as we did our day in Marin with the Morphys, after stops in Sausalito and Mill Valley, we drove up the Panoramic Highway, then up the Mt.Tamalpais Road, stopping at Rock Springs. From there, a short walk through tall, dry, golden grasses that swayed and sang in the afternoon wind brought us to the Bench. A thick fog that had advanced across the entire city and most of the hills below us hid the Ocean and The City, but gave us the feeling that today we were not at the edge of the world but rather on top of the world. Our hilltop alone, solitary and quiet, rose above the fog. In our bed of golden grass, we floated above the world, above the clouds. On this kind of afternoon, in this place, I know no other heaven too.