August 26, 2011

August 26, 2011

We have a busy few days planned. We are staying in Vallejo, a San Francisco suburb, and renting a car for a few days to crank out the many National Park sites in the area. The first thing I had to do was reprogram the GPS. It stopped working until I realized I had it set for no toll roads. In the Bay area, you can't go anywhere without paying at least one bridge toll.

Our first stop this morning was Muir Woods National Monument. It is a small grove of old growth redwoods on the north shore. It is a little cousin to Redwood National Park. The redwoods here are old but because this area receives less rain, they are smaller. Despite that the park has a very nice boardwalk thru the forest. There is something about a redwood forest that is special. Unfortunately this park is way too close to San Francisco and the tour busses. The park is absolutely jammed. I am also amazed at the number of people now carrying around the i-Pad and using it to take photos. It just seems so weird.

From Muir Woods we head south toward the city when a sign for Golden Gate National Recreation Area catches our attention. This National Park manages many miscellaneous sites throughout the area including Alcatraz (which we have already seen). We are at the Marin Headlands section. We stopped at the Visitor Center and then drove to Hawk Hill to get a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Well, it would have been if it wasn’t for this persistent whiteout fog. Without a view, I look around and notice this area has a quite a few forts and cannon batteries, mostly from WWII when the US thought Japan was going to invade the mainland.

From Marin County, we drove over a very foggy Golden Gate bridge to San Francisco. We take the first exit and wind around to the base of the bridge and the Fort Point National Historic Site. Apparently after the 1849 California gold rush, the US was afraid somebody would try to take California, so we constructed this three-story brick fort. For most of its history, the Bay area was armed to the teeth with defenses. Later when the Golden Gate Bridge was in the planning, Fort Point was deemed historic, and the bridge had to be built around and over it. The Fort Visitor Center has an interesting movie about the Point’s long history.

From Fort Point we drove east along the waterfront to Fisherman’s Wharf and the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. I usually have limited interest in maritime history but I found the place fascinating. The “Golden Gate” is strategic because it is the only significant break in the coastline for 1000 miles. Barge traffic brought grain from California’s interior and sailing ships connected isolated California with the rest of the world. The park has a small museum, and many ships on the nearby dock, several of which are unusual and interesting. One is a massive wooden ferry that operated before the Golden Gate was spanned. It is loaded with antique cars reminding me of the movie Titanic. There is also an iron sailing ship, which had lots of exhibits on cargo shipped in and out of the area. In the age of Amazon and the Internet we forget how in the not so distant past, one could easily wait a year for an order to arrive.

To finish the day, I gave Aimee my dime tour of San Francisco. We got in line and drove (or rather inched) down Lombard Street, the steep zig-zag street made famous in movies. We also drove by lots of painted Victorians, and through the very lush Golden Gate Park. Afterwards it was a long drive back to Vallejo.