Bay Area adventures. San Francisco Presidio Park.

Herewith, a catchup post. Our boys visited us in Silicon Valley back in January and while not lounging around watching the Super Bowl and sleeping in, we took them to Presidio Park in San Francisco. This is a 1,500-acre park on a former military post and it is magnificent.

We started out inauspiciously, parking in a lot filled with broken glass, evidence of car break-ins now prevalent in SF, but stepped out into the magnificant Palace of Fine Arts, built for the 1915 Panama Pacific Expedition. This structure was slated to be torn down after the expedition but the people of San Francisco wouldn't have it, and it still stands today. Here Samuel and Steven stand in front of the jaw dropping rotunda, 162 feet tall.

We then headed to the beach (yes, SF has a beach). The beach runs along SF Bay all the way to the Pacific, and if you walk far enough you come to Fort Point National Historic Site. In the interim, you can take thousands of pictures of Golden Gate bridge, as Benjamin is doing here.

Fort Point is a pretty unimaginative but appropriate name. The Fort really is at the point where San Francisco Bay meets the Pacific Ocean, at the base of the Golden Gate bridge. It also contains a Civil War era fortress that, like the Palace of Fine Arts was slated to be torn down when the Golden Gate bridge was constructed, before reason prevailed. The Golden Gate bridge really is built right over it. You can see why the architect might have considered just removing it, but now I think we're all glad that didn't happen.

The fortress never actually saw battle, but it sure was ready for it. Here Steven and I pose for a panormora shot taken by Samuel.

Next to the confluence of the Pacific and Bay are a few waves and what passes for surfing in San Francisco. Young men, warm blooded and fearless, make the most of these small waves, which crash into large boulders at the base of the fortress. If you look closely, you can see them trying to catch a few.