Whew! What a trip it has been. A four-day vacation in the Bay Area led to a bumper crop of material for MetroRiderLA, allowing for a 10-part miniseries. It was a joy to write; hopefully MetroReaders enjoyed reading the series.

Exploring San Francisco and Santa Rosa was tremendous fun. Four days was not enough to see and experience all of what just these two cities had to offer. Even an extended vacation would still show a mere fraction of all what the Bay Area has to offer.

With dozens of bus systems, three urban rail services, several commuter and tourist ferries and three busy train services, the Bay Area shows Elhay where Southern California what we are supposed to need. Right?

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IMPORTANT NOTICE

Technical difficulties prevented the diaries from being released in the original scheduled order. Part IV: Sonoma County runs today. Part V: Golden Gate Ferry, appeared yesterday. Thank you for your patience and your continued patronage of MetroRiderLA.

Charles Schulz thought he could live in Santa Rosa and complete his “Peanuts” comics in peace. He became the town’s most famous resident, and soon enough the Charles M. Schulz Museum & Research Center is founded and several “Peanuts” statues are placed throughout the city.

Sonoma County figuratively has one foot in the Bay Area and the other in the North Coast, but it also stands proudly and confidently on its own. Sonoma’s viticulture is its gift to the world, and its wineries are a major economic force. The vineyards and other agricultural industries are still very prominent, but the county is dotted with several cities that maintain a quaint, small-town charm.

The county’s location and its land use give it an unconventional transportation characteristic as well. Sonoma County has a transportation tapas bar; the portions are small but the options are many.

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What gives the city identity beyond mere municipal boundaries and civic government? Unique icons. Great cities, in time and space, have an element that could be either manmade or natural, but the presence of it is singular enough to become so closely associated with the area and its people. It’s something that one city has that no other can authentically claim. Every city has at least one.

New York City has the Empire State Building. Seattle has the Space Needle. Los Angeles has the Hollywood sign.

Each of these cities obviously has more architectural and natural features that also contribute to a sort of metropolitan image association. San Francisco has many as well. Sanfran has a distinct architectural style of houses that immediately leaps out and gives away its location. Other towering structures uniquely Sanfran are the Transamerica Building, which serves as the company’s logo, and Coit Tower. Sanfran also has monuments that double as modes of transportation: cable cars, responsible for transporting thousands per day and improving sales of Rice-a-Roni. But Sanfran’s most iconic landmark has size, span and sensory stimulation.

Nothing in San Francisco is more iconic than the Golden Gate Bridge.

We know the bridge is one of mankind’s engineering marvels. We know thousands travel between Sanfran and the North Bay, and many more visit it for the perfect photograph or vacation video. What’s not as well known, probably because it doesn’t have much visual appeal and because the forest is more interesting than the sum of its trees, is that the Golden Gate Bridge has a posse.

Golden Gate is not just a bridge. It’s a bus company as well.

And a ferry service.

Let’s ride across the Golden Gate Bridge using the structure’s own coach service.

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A 10-part miniseries!

Featuring a cast of thousands!

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