Now, that's Muir like it: "Vertigo" locale Muir Woods, north of San Francisco, California

 Here's Jimmy, Hitch, Kim and me hanging around Muir Woods...

 ...which was a location in the Hitchcock masterpiece "Vertigo" (poster by the great graphic designer and Hitchcock collaborator Saul Bass).

 Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak emote among the giant redwoods...

 ...and they checked out a tree segment showing how really old those Redwoods get...

 ...even going all the way back to 900 AD.

 The trees really are magnificent at Muir Woods.

 Poor Jimmy just can't get Kim out of his head.

 Hitchcock used lots of locations around San Francisco for "Vertigo" including the Golden Gate Bridge.

 This was as close as we got to that scene where Kim jumps into the drink near the bridge.

 And you thought you were having a rough day.

Whenever we're on a trip, if the opportunity to visit a location seen in one of our favorite movies arises, we try to grab it. Back in 2011,we were lucky enough to stroll through Muir Woods National Monument, a spectacular old-growth coastal redwood forest 12 miles north of San Francisco in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. If you're an Alfred Hitchcock fan, you'll recognize the place from his 1958 masterpiece "Vertigo". Jimmy Stewart, as unhinged height-phobic ex-police detective John "Scotty" Ferguson is hired to follow the mysterious and equally disturbed Madeleine Elster, played by the dishy Kim Novak. These two tortured souls spend a day together that includes a stop at Muir Woods, where they observe an old tree segment dating back to 900 AD. We were delighted to find the same segment in the park where Jimmy and Kim stood, looking just like it did in the movie. The only wet blanket in this whole endeavor is the fact that Hitchcock didn't actually film "Vertigo" here -- he used Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Boulder Creek, California instead, and the tree segment was a facsimile created by the prop department. We knew this going in, though, and we still had fun in the park enjoying the outstanding beauty of the trees and nature's splendor and were left to ponder the philosophical question, "If Jimmy Stewart has fear of falling in the forest and there is no one is around to hear him, does he still have vertigo?". I guess we'll never know.