Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus (A GeoEx eBook)

Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus

June 25, 2020

UP CLOSE & PERSONAL: A PILGRIMAGE TO THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

L ast Thursday dawned sunny and warm with a slight cooling breeze, perfect travel weather. Around mid-morning, after I had finished some crucial work, I went outside to savor the sunshine and commune with the geraniums. The deep and cloudless sky stretched overhead like a great azure invitation. The longer I stayed outside, the greater it pulled, until finally I could resist no longer—and impulsively decided to make a pilgrimage I had been meaning to make since settling in the Bay Area four decades before: to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. We all know the saying “Familiarity breeds contempt,” but in the case of landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge, familiarity breeds procrastination. When I lived in Paris, none of my local friends had ever been to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I have dozens of friends who live in New York City and have never visited the Statue of Liberty. So it has been with me and the Golden Gate Bridge. My feeling has always been, “It’s so close, I can walk across it any time.” And so the years have rolled by, and I never have. I cross the bridge by car dozens of times a year, but that’s entirely different: Then it’s a means to another destination,

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