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In Marin / CURRENTS
WILLOW CAMP Known to mountain bikers as a trail and
to equestrians as a stable, Willow Camp had a different identity at the turn of the 19th century — as the place that today
we call Stinson Beach. Named after the willow trees that grew
near the shore, it formed as a small tent settlement around
1870, when the first road was laid from Sausalito along the
Pacific coast. Visitors gained easier access to the area in 1896
when the Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railway opened.
Would-be beachgoers could ride the train to West Point Inn,
then hike or take a stagecoach down to the water. The first
businesses didn’t spring up until 1906, when refugees from
the San Francisco earthquake arrived. In 1916 Willow Camp
was renamed Stinson Beach after local landowners Rose
and Nathan Stinson. K.P.
PLACE Benefit Cosmetics Benihana Alamo Drafthouse Nothing Bundt Cakes Yoga Works
BIR THDAY PERK Brow wax $30 gift certificate Admission Bundtlet cake Class
DETAILS Make sure your brows are on
fleek with this complimentary
service available during your
birthday week.
If you like egg rolls and ogling
flaming onion volcanoes, register online for The Chef’s Table
to get your complimentary
teppanyaki dinner.
Sign up for the Alamo Victory
Program to catch the hottest
flick on the big screen, on
the house.
Sweet tooth? Join the email
club for a comped mini cake
topped with signature cream
cheese frosting.
Get your complimentary
downward dog on at any
Yoga Works when you join a
class on your birthday.
LOCATION 35 Throckmorton Ave, Mill
Valley, benefitcosmetics.com
1737 Post St, San Francisco,
benihana.com
2550 Mission St, San
Francisco, drafthouse.com
47 Tamal Vista Blvd,
Corte Madera,
nothingbundtcakes.com
Multiple locations,
yogaworks.com
Birthday Perks
It’s your birthday and you can cry if you want to, or you can spend the day getting a bunch of free stuff.
Here are some nearby businesses offering birthday freebies as of way of saying “thanks for being born.” L.L.
WHAT’S IN A NAME
PR ESERVING SPECI AL MOM EN TS with souvenirs, tokens and the like is normal. Memorializing a beach trip is a bit more challenging, and signs requesting that all items be left undisturbed mean visitors
depart with little save photos and their trash. Sand dollars are a different
story. “The sand dollars are not a large group in the grand scheme of things,
but there are over 200 species living today, and they display many strange,
unique and unfamiliar
features,” says Rich Mooi
of the California Academy
of Sciences. Related to
sea urchins and starfish,
sand dollars live in shal-
low coastal waters along
the ocean floor and are
usually green, purple or
blue when alive. Live sand
dollars are covered with a dense, velvety layer of short spines and tubular
feet, which they use to burrow into the sand. They move around with their
mouths toward the ground, eating microscopic particles of food, and they
live for years. “Some estimates are as high as about 20 years, which is pretty
old for a marine invertebrate, overall,” Mooi says. “The sand dollar living
off our coast today is called Dendraster excentricus and washes up on our
beaches in huge numbers after storms.” Its bleached, white skeleton is
evidence of one of our commonest local offshore life forms and is perfectly
fine to take home. K. P.
Take the Beach Home
