Two weeks ago, the Worldchanging San Francisco team was asked to share the Bay Area places they love. The first article in this series reflected on Alamo Square Park in San Francisco, Temescal Farmer's Market in Oakland, San Francisco's Coastal Trail behind Lincoln Park, Point Lobos State Reserve, and Rancho Laguna Park in Moraga.

- MW, Editor

. . .

Karri Winn: Nicasio Valley. My favorite place in the Bay Area is where I live -- tucked in behind San Geronimo Valley, I live in Nicasio Valley on a 30 acre parcel framed by redwood forest and oakland chaparral. It's about 45 minutes from the City. I live in a pseudo-collective situation with other fabulous evolutionary avatars crafting culture. The reason I love this place is multidimensional -- first and foremost for the sheer beauty of the landscape here in West Marin. It is so outstanding I can barely believe I live here -- especially now with the grass so green it glows gold in the daylight and daffodils are everywhere. I know it's spring time since I hear all of the motorcycles race through the valley and I think this is cool.

I'm fifth generation Californian and grew up in Nor Cal so I also just have a deep affinity for this kind of chaparral landscape that resonates in my bones... good to be here in the country with real quiet at night and it gets good and dark so the stars are bright and many! One of my peak joys in life is gardening -- permaculture style for sure -- this is my offering, healing and crafting art with this garden, keeping it simple and helping life grow. So for me it's fabulous that I have this garden right at the back deck of my office where I can take breaks in amidst work all day long and I love this rhythm in my lifestyle. touching the soil frequently keeps me connected to earth time. Hummingbirds hang out here and two seasonal creeks run on either side. I love the sound of creeks especially at night when I fall asleep. We have loads of animals: coyote, bobcat, mountain lion, frogs, birds, foxes, wild turkeys, deer and snakes and all kinds of insects.

Patrick Berkeley: Embarcadero YMCA, San Francisco. When I moved to San Francisco eight months ago I was looking for a gym and decided to give the Embarcadero YMCA a try. I had been told that YMCAs had nice facilities and gave students discounts, but I had the preconceived notion that Ys were a little bit dark and dingy and had fluorescent lighting and smelled strongly of chlorine.

To my pleasant surprise, the Embarcadero Y is a brightly lit, well maintained facility. They offer a wide selection of classes (many are included in monthly membership) ranging from spinning to yoga and aquatic fitness to dance. The instructors are very helpful and professional. If group fitness is not for you, there is a standard lineup of cardio machines (treadmills, bikes, elliptical machines, etc.), but what is anything but standard is the view you have while working out on them. They look out over the Bay toward Treasure Island. It's amazing!

Among the patrons, there is a definite emphasis on overall health rather than muscle mass and pure vanity. Everyone I've met has been remarkably friendly which really enhances an already great environment. As one of my acquaintances put it "[the Y] is one of the best deals in the city!"

I've mentioned just a few favorites of the many things the Y has to offer. For more info please visit the YMCA SF website. Also note the Embarcadero Y began a locker room remodeling project on March 8th.

Victoria Everman: Sutro Baths, San Francisco. I don't know too many folks that would pick a no-longer existent place as something they love, but hey, I'm strange. The Sutro Baths near the top of Ocean Beach is one of my favorite places to go on both clear and cloudy days. Opened in 1896, this was once the world's largest indoor swimming facility. Despite the name, no one actually bathed nude here - you had to wear a swimsuit. High costs for operating and maintenance eventually forced the location to close its doors. After the land was bought by a development company wanting to build apartments, the structure was planned for demolition. Fate stepped in and a fire burned the place down in 1966. Thankfully, those building plans fell through and the ruins still stand today.

My love for this location comes not only from the gorgeous view and impeccable location, but the communal history of the place still lingers. Despite our constant connection via e-mail and cellphones, the true elements of community have fallen by the wayside in the past ten years. The Sutro Baths were a place for people to gather and mingle over a common, enjoyable activity -- swimming. Coffee shops are a similar gathering place in our current day-in-age, but by no means as interactive. These in-person, gathering places are highly needed in our society, yet they are less and less available as the days continue to fly by. The Sutro Baths remind me of a time when running into your neighbors and school teachers was a pleasant surprise that was worth stopping and talking for twenty minutes, no matter what else you were doing.

Rose Miller: Sonoma Valley. The landscape of my childhood was suffused with vineyards and gnarled oaks, fruit trees, and hillsides blanketed in grass. As a young child, I could not imagine a life outside of the valley that was filled with the fragrance of sun-baked grass in summer, played host to trees laden with small, sweet plums in springtime, bushes weighted down by plump blackberries in summer, and green grasses that would rise out of the earth and blanket my view of the surrounding countryside with the beginning of the rains. Local ecology was always at the forefront of my awareness even before I learned the intricacy of its history. In the nineteen years I have known the town, Sonoma has changed, but each time I return, some potent olfactory memory reminds me of the familiar ecology.

As in much of California, Sonoma is another battle-ground in the struggle of native flora and fauna against non-native interlopers. The outcome is not pleasant for the natives. I did not learn to distinguish between the native and introduced species until I was older, and until this point, my ecological awareness encompassed the breadth of species that posed and interest to my young self. Persimmons, those strange autumn-ripening fruits that remain on the tree long after the leaves have fallen are an early memory of my hometown. Eucalyptus, a species that was introduced, perhaps faultily, to provide windbreaks on the flat, valley floor is another early memory. Its potent fragrance instilled in me a powerful scent-memory. I also remember the turkey vultures gliding low over the valley, slowly riding air-currents like strange, living aircraft, and the foxes, raccoons, and other wily creatures that killed the chickens that my family kept. Mountain lions were, and still are for me, mythic creatures that are rumored to live in the hills surrounding the valley. Vineyards are the most obvious flora as they provide the regions primary cash-crop. As a child, there were always grapes to steal from vines in the fall and the scent of newly made wine occasionally suffused the air with its pungent, but not-unpleasant aroma.

When I was ten-years-old, a true old-timer in my town visited my school to educate my class about local, ecological history. It was only then that I began to draw the distinction between native and non-native species and to contemplate the drastic ecological and geomorphologic changes that had been occurring in my home-town, and more broadly, in my local watershed within the space of one generation. Bob Canard had lived in the valley for longer than I could imagine and remembered when Sonoma Creek was broad and deep and when Steelhead Trout fought its current and spawned in its upper reaches. He appealed to us children, including his grandsons who attended my school, by detailing his own boyhood summer adventures that included swimming in the creek that in places, he could remember, was six feet deep in the summer. It was difficult to imagine the creek I knew being as grand as this. In summer, it ranged from a few inches to barely a few feet in depth, and it was far from swimable. From Bob Canard, we learned how the creek flows to the San Francisco Bay, and how silt has been slowly tempering its flow owing to changes in agricultural practices and possibly forces beyond human control. Most of all, we learned about watersheds so that we could begin to draw parallels between our own lives and the land.

It was in this way that watershed was defined for me through story. We are accustomed to thinking of cities and towns, specific locations with boundaries marked by signs. As children, we learned to read municipal maps and street signs, and often failed to notice the morphology of the land. It was fortunate for me that a long-time resident in my town came to my school to provide an alternative map of the land with which we were all so familiar. He showed a map delineating our watershed, and he told us stories about growing up in the town. He talked about change because he had seen the shifts in the land that came with time, change in the agricultural practices, and the growth of the town. Local inhabitants who had seen the changes in the land over the years wanted to show us the slowly disappearing creeks and teach us about our own land that was receding under asphalt and vineyard monocultures that carpeted the hills.

As children, we were able to hear these stories because in 1992, prompted by the anniversary of Earth Day, a few locals with science backgrounds and a commitment to restoring the watershed founded The Sonoma Ecology Center. It was the Ecology Center that started education programs in the local schools. To learn about their watershed, the children heard stories like those my classmates and I heard from Bob Canard, and joined in creek clean-ups. The Ecology Center also established creek monitoring programs with the intention of evaluating habitat viability for Steelhead Trout. Emphasizing the importance of stories was an integral part of the Ecology Center’s mission. They established a historical ecology project, lead by Arthur Dawson, to accompany their education program and scientific monitoring efforts. This project aims to record ecological history from the perspective of those who are most intimately connected with its land while the education programs teaches young people to connect to the land and to understand its natural processes.

Though I no longer live in the Sonoma Valley, it is still the place with which I am most intimately connected. After a childhood spent in the valley, and a summer monitoring the reaches of Sonoma Creek for the Sonoma Ecology Center, I am familiar with its flora and fauna, its varied biomes, and the perfumes that are specific to the biology and climate of the area. Now, a whole new generation is learning the lay of the land, and hearing stories of how it was before they arrived.

Brian Smith: Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. My favorite place in the Bay Area is right in the middle of San Francisco. Hippie Hill (overlooking Sharon Meadow) in Golden Gate Park has been a hang out for free-thinkers, hippies, soccer and Frisbee players, drummers, swirl dancers, and sun-worshipers for more than 40 years.

Hippie Hill got its name during the halcyon days of the Haight-Ashbury counter-culture in the 1960s. The sight of many "Be-Ins" and concerts, this small section of Golden Gate Park is a must see for anyone visiting San Francisco.

Hippie Hill became famous the day George Harrison showed up. At just 24 years old, Harrison wanted to see with his own eyes what the Haight-Ashbury Hippies were all about. At Hippie Hill, George borrowed a guitar, and after a few bars of "Baby, You're a Rich Man" he was recognized.

"Hey," she shouted. "That's George Harrison. That's George Harrison!"

According to David Swanston, a San Frananciso Chronicle reporter on the scene, here is what happened next:

As the cry echoed through the park, hippies clambered down hills, dropped from trees and sprang from behind bushes. A sizable crowd formed. Harrison played for about 10 more minutes and then shouted, 'Let's go for a walk.'

'Yeah,' shouted the hippies, 'let's go.'

And off they went. Harrison strumming the guitar, the hippies following along. As the crowd left the park and moved down Haight, it grew. And grew. As Harrison strolled and strummed, hippies bubbled up beside him and posed questions:

'How does it feel to have the family all together?' one asked.

'It's gettin' better all the time,' Harrison responded.

'What do ya think of the Haight-Ashbury?' another queried.

'Wow, if it's all like this, it's too much,' Harrison answered."

Even today there is an "anything can happen" vibe on Hippie Hill, and with the nearly complete redo of the Children's Playground just across Sharon Meadow, it's a great place for adventurous families to check out on their trip to San Francisco.

To get there take the N-Judah train to Stanyan and walk down Stanyan and into the park. By bicycle take The Wiggle route from Market Street through the Lower Haight and enter the park at the end of the Panhandle. Hippie Hill is behind the trees to your left. On a sunny day, just listen for the drumming.

All images courtesy their owners (see texts associated with them), copyright 2007, worldchanging use rights.

Please note that, while disagreement is fine, insults and abuse are not, and will result in the comment being deleted and a likely ban from commenting.