Golden Gate Surfing

We headed over to the Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Point today. The fort was built for the Civil War and sits on the southern side of the mouth of the bay. The bridge was built around the fort to spare it. I’m glad they did. It’s a marvel of brick and stone. It’s what I wish Fort Sumter was. Fort Sumter is mostly a concrete bunker now, but once looked similar. We wandered all around Fort Point. The top of the fort provides excellent views of the city, the bridge, the bridge’s massive steel structure, the ocean, and the dozen or so surfers riding the waves that enter the bay.


Fort Point really is underneath the bridge.


Lots o’ bricks

We were all fascinated by the surfers. They hang out very close to the rocks near the base of the fort. The water is no doubt cold and I’m sure the rocks are not soft. We gradually learned who was good and who was not. The guy on the white board farthest out was not. He let every wave pass him by. The guy on the blue board was the best. He rode most anything, and rode it well. At least it looked good to us.


These surfers were born without the very helpful fear-of-severe-bodily-injury gene.

After exploring the fort we walked out on the bridge a little ways to check things out. The walkway is crowded with cyclers and tourists and cycling tourists. As soon as you get to the concrete pier before the main span, there are signs for crisis counseling and a number you can call. The bridge has long been and remains a popular site for jumpers. However, the surfers seem to have found the most creative way to imperil themselves.




This is what a cross section of one of the two massive cables holding everything up looks like. There are over 27,000 steel wires bundled in the 36-inch diameter cable.

We drove straight into downtown and in so doing wound along famous Lombard Street. It was fun. Many of the streets really are improbably steep. I’m sure glad the truck isn’t manual transmission. We had a couple errands to run near Union Square again. We timed our trip perfectly so that we’d be heading back to the trailer at rush hour. Ahh.



Conor and Taylor whipped up some pasta and a tasty cream sauce with peas and bacon. You can never go wrong with bacon. Even more delicious was dessert: Grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches sprinkled with powdered sugar. This gave us the energy we needed to play some board games.



Tomorrow we are heading out to Alcatraz in the early afternoon. We’ll stay downtown until it’s time to take Conor and Taylor to the airport. We cannot believe it is already time for them to leave. The week has flown by!