A trip to Marin County can be a wildlife adventure. Just a short drive from San Francisco, it remains a hub of natural beauty.

With diverse landscapes including rolling hills, forest, pristine coastline, and offshore islands, Marin presents a special chance for nature lovers to see the wonder of wildlife in its natural setting.

One of the best ways to experience the beauty of Marin’s wildlife is to take a guided wildflower walk. Visitors can join a group hike or opt for a self-guided walk along one of the many trails that offer stunning views and an opportunity to see wildflowers like the California poppy, the golden lupine, and the Farewell to Spring.

If you are in the mood for a wildlife tour in Marin, you’ve come to the right place. Point Reyes National Seashore is famous for its Tule Elk Reserve, whale watching from Chimney Rock, and mating season at Elephant Seal Overlook. December through March, sneak a peek at these elephant seals and their pups, which have been coming to Marin since the 1970s, on Drake’s Beach.

Grab your binoculars or camera and book a tour with Point Reyes Safaris where naturalist photographer Daniel Dietrich and his team will help you locate the best of the best to bring home those memorable pictures of elk, fox, coyote, bobcat, raptors, owls, and more.

For guided tours of Marin’s natural wildlife and landscape, take a kayak tour with Tomales Bay Expeditions. A three-hour night tour with their experienced guides is very unique way to experience Tomales Bay, which is well known as a great place to see planktonic bioluminescence at night, as well as star gazing and spotting nocturnal predators. Explore other adventures on your own with a kayak rented from Blue Waters Kayaking located in Point Reyes.

The Marin Islands National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1909, is a crucial habitat for a variety of seabirds, marine mammals, and other species. More than 300,000 seabirds, including several threatened and endangered species like the Western Gull and the Ashy Storm-Petrel, find refuge on the islands. In December through May, you can see thousands of whales pass by the islands on their way to and from their breeding grounds in Mexico. The refuge also provides a chance to observe the gray whale migration.

Whether you’re visiting for the flowers or the animals, Marin County always has something for everyone. The Marin Convention & Visitors Bureau looks forward to seeing you this season.

// For suggestions on places to stay, go to visitmarin.org.

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If there’s a spring in Greg McQuaid’s step as he gathers the latest band of day-trippers for his renowned San Francisco walking tour it’s probably because steps are his bread and butter.

In fact, before his famed Hidden Stairways walking tour is over, he will have inveigled, coaxed and enthused an eclectic group of visitors to climb hundreds of steps in the City by the Bay. 

Of course, only a loquacious Irishman — as much a showman and steps dancer as a tour guide — could make a walking tour up steep stairways a top tourist attraction. In fact, Airbnb rate it their number one walking tour in San Fran.

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LOOKING UP: The stunning hidden stairways of San Francisco

But then McQuaid is a performer with pedigree – before departing Ireland, he played drums with Dublin band Peach and for a decade and more hosted his own radio show in his adopted city. It was when the radio gig folded, that he found his very own stairway to heaven.

“Every day is different,” he told this volunteer flaneur for his unique and bracing walking tour. “Indeed, that’s the fun of it. It also pays the bills though I’m hardly going to get rich at it.”

Gift certificates now available for the Hidden Stairways of San Francisco, the top rated Airbnb experience in the Bay Area. The perfect present for the outdoorsy people in your life! $25 a head (25% discount) now through Xmas. Shoot me a DM to get yours! #SmallBusinessSaturday pic.twitter.com/YtapRvuJtd

— Greg McQuaid (@IrishGreg) November 27, 2021

Bouncing back from the collapse of his radio role, McQuaid was intrigued by the story of the five stairways in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset area which had been transformed into elaborate tiled mosaics by artists Aileen Barr (a native of Donegal) and Colette Crutcher. Journalist Katy Atchison tells how the pair met when they submitted competing proposals to the 16th Avenue neighbours who wanted to transform the dull concrete stairways into a community treasure. The community body suggested they work together on the project – thus launching an enduring friendship and a joint career. 

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MOSAIC: Can you spot the salamander?

Barr told Atchison: “The 16th Ave Tiled steps has a Sea to Sky theme. Beginning at the bottom steps you see an underwater scene with fish and sea creatures in swirls of blue representing the ocean. As you move up the stairways, the colors gradually change and the design transforms from the sea to a river. The riverbank teems with birds and small creatures. Climbing upwards the river becomes narrower as it flows from the mountains. Above the mountains, the sky appears and then fades darker to the moon with its contrasting mirror. At the very top flight of the steps, the sun shines with a yellow, orange, and red tile mosaic. The project was mainly funded by the local community through donor tiles. You can see the names of the donors on the handmade tile depicting fish, shell, bird and animals, each one unique.”

Hidden Stairways of San Francisco tour with (former KFOG) @IrishGreg FTW! https://t.co/0fnouFuKqi via @WeekendSherpa pic.twitter.com/82h9ot2HUt

— Rich Schwerin (he/him/his) (@Greencognito) August 25, 2022

For McQuaid, the stairways led to a new career.

“I did my research into the stairways and really loved the community element. The costs of the artworks were largely covered by the local community who continue to maintain the steps and the adjoining gardens. I had been told that tourists love the idea of visiting something which sounds like it is off-the-beaten-track; a real discovery. So I called the tour the Hidden Stairways of San Francisco and that really struck a chord. Of course, they’re not hidden at all and a visitor could do this walk on their own but I provide historical context and a running commentary.”

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HIGH TIMES: Breathtaking views of San Francisco from atop the hidden stairways

In fact, McQuaid does more than that – he has props to hand, including maps of San Franciso of yesteryear and iPad videos, to enliven his account of the city’s history on (welcome) stops at the top of each flight of stairs. He is full-on, moving between taking snaps of his trusty group at his favourite stairway spot, doling out sunscreen on the rare days, including when the author signed up, that the sun breaks through the San Francisco fog and demonstrating a magician’s ability to produce endless bottles of water from his backpack. 

Míle buíochas. Big thnx to Dub Greg McQuaid – based in these parts since ‘94 – for astounding tour of hidden stairs of San Fransisco – marvels of art & community created by Irish artist Aileen Barr & her colleague Colette Crutcher. #hiddenstairssf pic.twitter.com/svTK96CfZk

— Máirtín Ó Muilleoir (@newbelfast) August 20, 2023

McQuaid’s Californian chapter opened in 1994 when he went west seeking work. Though raised in Dublin, he had been born in Philadelphia and possessed that most valuable aid to the emigrant Irish – a US passport. “I arrived in Los Angeles the day of the O.J. Simpson police chase,” he recalls. “The place was locked down and my brother couldn’t get to the airport to pick me up. I thought, ‘wow, welcome to the USA’. About 18 months later, I made my way up to San Francisco where I got an introduction to the world of radio which ended up in a producer’s job. That was something I could never have done in Ireland. Things just happened easily here in a way which wasn’t true in Ireland. I was all-in on the American dream. I know I’m speaking with the perspective of a privileged white person but at a time when Dublin was depressed, dysfunctional and grey, there was an everything is possible spirit here.”

15 “crazy” years with K-FOG, where he got to meet Joe Strummer, Paul McCartney and other music legends, came to an abrupt end in 2016 when the station “fell apart”. 

The idea for McQuaid’s new career came, of course, when he was out for a dander. “I live in the Inner Sunset and was out walking the dog when I came on the reimagined stairways,” he explains. “I had heard about Airbnb experiences and thought this could be a new opening for me. Luckily, on one of my first-ever tours, a senior executive from Airbnb came along (the company is headquartered in the city) and he gave the tour a real boost internally”

Now a 25-year-resident of San Francisco, McQuaid truly has left his heart there. “San Francisco takes a beating nationally and internationally for its many problems, including homelessness, and those criticisms are not without merit,” he says. “But I’m immensely proud of this city. It’s beautiful and I love that I get to show it off.”

He plans to continue his walking tours as long as the paying public turns up — and he’s doing his bit to ensure the stairways continue to prosper by making an annual contribution to their upkeep. “I respect the community who created and maintain the stairways and, at a time when art is so often priced out by commerce, I’m delighted to have found a job which allows me to showcase these astounding artworks.”

Belfast Media readers who find themselves in the Bay Area can book the Hidden Stairways tours via Airbnb. 

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FINISH LINE: The tour ends on one of the highest hills in the city.

Do you have something to say on this issue? If so, submit a letter for publication to Conor McParland at c.mcparland@belfastmedia.com or write to Editor Anthony Neeson at Andersonstown News/North Belfast News, Teach Basil, 2 Hannahstown Hill, Belfast BT17 0LT

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One of the most powerful motivations for leaving the house is the promise of a little treat. A sip, a snack, a bite, a nosh — all are a deeply essential part of the ritualistic exercise I’ve created for myself anytime I step foot outside my front door. At this point, it’s Pavlovian. Exit home, receive treat. And now that it’s finally feeling like summer in San Francisco, I’m able to participate in the ultimate version of this ritual: walking and snacking at the same time.

A walkable city is a joy for myriad reasons. People who live in them are likely to be happier. They’re likely to live longer. And by following my lead, they’re likely to eat danker snacks more regularly.

The concept of a Walk and Snack might seem simple, but I’ll elucidate just to make absolutely certain we’re on the same page. You have somewhere to go. Maybe it’s a party. Maybe it’s a dinner. Maybe it’s work, or maybe it’s just to go pick up flowers for yourself. You decide to walk (you’re in a walkable city, after all). You give yourself enough time to walk to your destination and build in an extra fifteen minutes — this step is crucial — and then you map it.

Now, check out your route. If the food gods are on your side, ideally, there will be one food stop, but if they really like you, then two food stops along your path. What you’re looking for here is food that can be consumed on the go. The point is not to stop, sit, and eat. The point is to pause, grab, and continue on your journey. It’s all about enjoying the city and your snack, along with the weather and your neighbors, all at the same time. Sandwiches and pizza slices are obvious choices, but don’t limit your imagination here — many foods can be walked and snacked upon at the same time.

The ultimate beauty and pain of living in a city is that the old guard can be taken for granted while newer upstarts appear and disappear more quickly than the X on top of the Twitter building. There are the stalwart corner stores with good sandwiches and bakeries with fresh conchas, alongside street meat and fruit stands coated in Tajin and chamoy that have weathered many a storm. Other, newer places like AL’s Deli, with its perfectly portable stuffed latkes, have proved less resilient. This is, in some small way, where walking and snacking comes in. Grab a bite, take it to go, and support all local businesses. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Deviled eggs on the go.

Garrett Schlichte

Walking through the Castro? Stop at Rossi’s Deli for deviled eggs that are delicious, dense, surprisingly portable, and were on the menu long before they’d come back in vogue all over the Bay. In the mood for something a little more whimsical? Stop into Giddy Candy on the corner of 16th and Market. A free-standing candy store outside of a mall? A dream!

If you’re moving through the Mission, you’d be an idiot to pass up an elote stick from Snackeria de la Mission or fruta picada from one of the many freestanding fruit stands in the area. But you also can’t go wrong with an empanada (or two) from Venga on Valencia or anything from Dianda, King’s, or La Mejor.

In the Richmond? With such limited seating inside, Good Luck Dim Sum almost demands you walk and snack. Golden Boy Pizza in North Beach basically requires you to as well, with its convenient window for ordering. Open on both ends, tacos may only be available to the most agile of walker-snackers, but Tacos Del Barrio makes it worth the effort.

Big salads or slurpy soups are obviously less optimal for a walk and snack, but that doesn’t immediately disqualify noodle shops and salad counters, either. Chả giò is far more portable and just as much of a reason to stop into Pho 2000 in the Tenderloin. And whereas I’d avoid the Automat breakfast sandwich for fear the egg might slip out on my walk, the french fries with Automat sauce are perfect should you be walking from Alamo Square toward the Richmond or NoPa to Cole Valley (or whatever route you find yourself on).

As we head into summer in San Francisco, which we don’t really get until October, there isn’t a better city for a walk and snack. And there’s no better way to taste a place than to keep yourself free from the confinement of a table. Yes, still make reservations and find time for table service, and yes, still tip well, but also release the injudicious belief that dining out is only for dining in. In this 7×7 city, there are an estimated 4,500 restaurants, and you’ll never even make a dent if you don’t stop in on foot. So get out there, get eating, and don’t be afraid to make a couple of stops along the way.

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The post With the Summer season Climate, Proper Now Is the Greatest Time to Stroll and Snack in San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Carlos Santana, 75, is a guitarist who pioneered Latin jazz-rock fusion and won 10 Grammys. He is the subject of Carlos, a Sony Pictures documentary due out this fall and currently touring nationally. He spoke to Marc Myers.

Carlos Santana, 75, is a guitarist who pioneered Latin jazz-rock fusion and won 10 Grammys. He is the subject of Carlos, a Sony Pictures documentary due out this fall and currently touring nationally. He spoke to Marc Myers.

When I was 9 years old, sharing was not easy for me. As I sat on the sofa in my violin teacher’s living room while he was in the kitchen, my hands found nearly $2 in change between the pillows.

When I was 9 years old, sharing was not easy for me. As I sat on the sofa in my violin teacher’s living room while he was in the kitchen, my hands found nearly $2 in change between the pillows.

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After my class I went to the candy store and spent all the money on M&Ms and Baby Ruth bars. At home, my mother hung out laundry outside, so I started eating the sweets and ate it all up.

When she found out I’d spent almost two dollars on candy and wasn’t sharing it with my brothers and sisters, she left it to me. After that day, sharing became second nature to me and eventually expanded into music and performing.

My parents met in the Mexican city of Cihuatlán. My father José was a professional violinist and entertainer who played at shows. There wasn’t much work in town and the woman he was dating, Josefina, had seen too many American films. Both wanted a better life.

So they fled and made their way to Autlán, 75 miles northeast. There they started a family. I was the middle of seven children spread over 13 years.

We lived there in different houses until I was eight. Our houses usually had two bedrooms and no electricity or water, just an outbuilding. My brothers Tony and Jorge and I shared a room.

My father was charismatic and my mother questioned everything. She had to. He was away for months to earn money. At home, mom had rules and didn’t hesitate to enforce them.

She divided up chores in the mornings and explained exactly how to do them so the house was immaculate. “We’re poor,” she said, “but we’re not filthy poor.” There wasn’t much time left for affection.

My father put all his love into his violin. As a player, he was a powerful storyteller and captured my imagination. In the mid-1950s, Papa followed the money and traveled north. Eventually he was in Tijuana, a party town, where he played mariachi, boleros and polkas. He sent for us in 1955.

My mother sold our stuff for cash and we all took cabs. It’s been a long, hard journey and there’s no turning back. Along the way, I was able to empathize with my mother and the struggle. I told her that one day I would buy her a house with a refrigerator and a washing machine. She smiled and patted my head.

After two tough years in Tijuana, we moved to a better area. A year later my father started teaching me the violin so I could earn money. I started playing the song with my guitarist brothers on the street for 50 cents.

I loved sharing music and making people feel good. Soon I was playing the violin with my father and his friends. In search of a better payday, he took the bus to San Francisco. He planned to be gone for a year. After he left, I stopped playing the violin. My mother noticed that my interest in music was waning.

One day in 1961 she took me to the park to listen to a band with electric guitars playing early rock ‘n’ roll. The solo guy was Javier Bátiz, who turned my head. I was 13 and started following him.

My mother wrote to my father asking him to buy me an electric guitar. He had a friend drop off a big fat Gibson. I listened to everything, ripped songs off records and taught myself to play what blues players did.

The Mexican community in San Francisco had expanded, and my father played regularly at the Latin American Club in the city’s Mission District. He formed one of the city’s first serious mariachi bands.

In late 1962, the club owner supported our move to San Francisco so we could join Dad. That’s where I started my first rock band. The turning point came in 1966 when Paul Butterfield was too stoned to play a Sunday matinee at the Fillmore Auditorium. I tuned in and got the attention of concert promoter Bill Graham, who booked my band. We needed a name, so we called ourselves the Santana Blues Band.

Today, my wife, Cindy, and I live in Las Vegas and vacation at our home in Hawaii. We married in 2010 and moved into our home in Las Vegas about six years ago.

Beginning in the early 1970’s, I bought my mother a number of houses in the Bay Area when the neighborhoods where she lived were declining. The last was 45 minutes northeast of town. She gasped when she saw it.

She said, almost whispering, “My son.” What I saw on her face was shock and gratitude. It’s an amazing feeling to tell your mom when you were little that you’re going to make her life better, and so are you.

Santana’s spiritualism

mom lesson? She taught me that spiritual, disciplined people can see more rainbows and wonders than others.

Vegas house? It’s like a warehouse with high ceilings. Inside is a lot of wood. I am not a plastic and synthetic type.

Why? Diving in and feeling the water hit my face and body is like playing the guitar. I will be transported somewhere else.

Hawaii? There everything becomes more emotional in the sense of gratitude, gratitude and deep appreciation. It’s like discovering new places in my heart.

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San Francisco children were recorded on video having to walk past what appeared to be one of the city’s open-air drug dens on their way home from school.

Ricci Wynne posted the video on Twitter last week, writing that the students were getting off the 14 transit line on 8th and Mission Streets when they encountered what appeared to be the homeless encampment sprawled across the sidewalk.

“This is no back ally [sic],” Wynne wrote. “This is a main artery in our city that has been hijacked bye [sic] drug dealers and now it is pure filth!”

The video shows a stream of children and other passengers getting off the public transit system before the camera cuts to the sidewalk, where a group of apparently homeless people was gathered.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA MOTHER OF FENTANYL USER WARNS CITY IS ENABLING SON’S DRUG USE

Wynne added, “Now ask yourself this question would you want your children to walk through this squalor just to get home from school?”

WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

Wynne tagged a slew of politicians in the post including President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and San Francisco Mayor London Breed.

Describing himself as a recovering drug addict, Wynne frequently posts videos showing drug addicts and drug paraphernalia on the city streets.

Homeless people are seen on streets of the Tenderloin District in San Francisco, California, on Oct. 30, 2021. -File
(Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The area where Wynne says the video was taken is nearby the Linkage Center in the city’s Tenderloin District, a neighborhood notorious for its rampant drug abuse.

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The Linkage Center was intended to connect homeless people and drug addicts with social services, but multiple accounts have claimed people were instead shooting up or smoking fentanyl inside.

San Francisco logged 650 overdose deaths last year and at least 700 in 2020. Recovery advocates have said that every one of those deaths was preventable.

Fox News’ Claudia Cowan contributed to this report.

The post San Francisco kids stroll previous open-air drug den on manner residence from college, surprising video reveals: report appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

After two years of participating in mostly virtual events due to the pandemic, UC San Francisco is rallying its community to come together in Golden Gate Park for AIDS Walk San Francisco on July 17 to raise funds for programs and services that benefit people of the Bay Area .

As an institution dedicated exclusively to health, UCSF has participated in AIDS Walk San Francisco since it started in 1987 as part of its longstanding commitment to the health and wellbeing of the community.

Proceeds raised in the annual 10K fundraising trek this year will go toward the POP-UP program (Positive-health Onsite Program for Unstably Housed Populations). Image by Noah Berger

For the past 35 years, members of the UCSF community have joined thousands of Bay Area residents who have walked, donated funds, and volunteered in AIDS Walk San Francisco in the ongoing fight against HIV/AIDS, raising more than $90 million for organizations across seven Bay Area counties.

This year, Francesca Vega, vice chancellor of Community & Government Relations, is leading the charge for the UCSF coalition of teams that has set a fundraising goal of $50,000.

“As a world leader in providing pioneering patient-centered care and ongoing research to find a cure, we understand the importance of raising funds that support these efforts in the community we call home,” Vega says. “I encourage faculty, staff, students and their friends and families to join our UCSF team in AIDS Walk San Francisco.”

At UCSF, about a half a dozen teams have formed that are raising money in a friendly competition to see which team brings in the most money. The team with the highest total of donations wins the coveted AIDS Walk Trophy presented by UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood.

Helping Those Living With HIV

Proceeds raised in the annual 10K fundraising trek this year will go toward the POP-UP program at Ward 86 – one of the nation’s first dedicated HIV outpatient clinics – at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center and UCSF 360 Wellness Center, which has offered cutting-edge care since 1984, among other Bay Area AIDS-related programs and services.

Launched in 2019, POP-UP (Positive-health Onsite Program for Unstably Housed Populations) aims to reduce health disparities among homeless and unstably housed individuals living with HIV in San Francisco.

AIDS Walk San Francisco funding will be instrumental to assisting Ward 86 achieve its goals of helping patients with HIV and homelessness become healthier and receive tailored HIV care.

Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH

“We are honored here at Ward 86 to be a recipient of AIDS Walk San Francisco funding,” says Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, professor of medicine and medical director of Ward 86. “Funds raised will be applied to those living with HIV and homelessness, especially to offer long-acting antiretroviral therapy (ART) to these patients.

“POP-UP has enrolled over 150 of our most vulnerable patients and our low-barrier drop-in care program has managed to increase virologic suppression rates in this population from 0% to 50%, but we still have a way to go to help this population. AIDS Walk San Francisco funding will be instrumental to assisting Ward 86 achieve its goals of helping patients with HIV and homelessness become healthier and receive tailored HIV care.”

Establishing a Model of HIV Care

UCSF’s legacy of leadership in AIDS over the past 40 years began with the emergence of the unknown virus in the early 1980s when San Francisco was the epicenter of the epidemic. At that time, UCSF physicians and allied health professionals and staff rose to the challenge of this public health crisis by working with the partners and patients in the San Francisco community to develop a standard of practice that became known as “the San Francisco Model” of care .

This model of interdisciplinary collaboration among doctors, nurses, social workers, case managers, psychiatrists, addiction specialists, nutritionists and others has yielded innovations in HIV and infectious disease care and served as a model for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, UCSF’s HIV-focused practices and programs, continue to build on the innovative research and clinical care that furthers understanding of the disease and enables HIV-positive patients to thrive.

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Gasper and his wife Minnie Pulizzi are walking from San Diego to San Francisco to combat the sky-high gas prices.

That trek is roughly 500 miles.

Eyewitness News caught up with the couple, who are in their 80s, for a recent report on the rising gas prices.

Gasper says he can remember when gas was 25 cents a gallon in 1959.

The last time someone made such a journey was last April, when a man in a bear suit trekked from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

READ MORE: Life-sized teddy bear walking from LA to San Francisco

The man who went by Bearsun started his journey from Little Tokyo in LA County in his attempt to reach viral fame. A deputy stopped him along the way and gave him the all-clear to continue safely.

This was a bear-y unique situation. You may have seen a large teddy bear walking through town. One of our deputies got to meet the individual inside the bear & learned his goal is to complete a walk from Los Angeles to San Francisco. We wish him the best of luck on his adventure! pic.twitter.com/oLLyZsfZE1

— SCV Sheriff (@SCVSHERIFF) April 14, 2021

The Pulizzis will likely walk a full 100 miles more than Bearsun did in his journey. The couple is 50 years old.

Copyright © 2022 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.

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