I’ve been going running along the Embarcadero here in San Francisco lately. These runs afford me fresh air coming off the bay, stunning views of the bay itself, a chance to run under the beautiful Bay Bridge and down to the AT&T ballpark. I run past palm trees and E-Line street cars, and the weather is cool and clear enough to pretty much do it every day. In short, it sometimes feels like we live in paradise.
Naturally, we like to share that with friends and family who visit. I’ve had a fun year of local touristing as cousins, sisters and friends have been in town visiting. Our favorite place to take them is Fort Baker. It’s almost always less chaotic than the lookout point at the north side of the bridge, and you actually get to walk around a fair amount to get some views of both the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco itself. It’s also where I got my head shots done, including the header image I’ve used for this blog for several years. I’m a big fan of the city skyline from there.
Back in April we made a visit up to The Marine Mammal Center, which I wrote about here. We took an alternate route back due to a closed tunnel, and that’s how we ended up looking down at the Golden Gate Bridge from the northwest edge, the one view I hadn’t seen yet. It’s a pretty exceptional ones, getting to see the undeveloped hilly area on the north side and then the San Francisco city skyline in the far distance. I probably could have sat there all day.
Alas, I didn’t have all day. I had only taken the morning off from work and I had to grab a bite before catching the ferry back to San Francisco from Sausalito while MJ took everyone else on to Muir Woods. Now, I’d taken a ferry in the bay before, one to Alcatraz to do some tourist visiting, another to Alameda and back when visiting a potential location for a Partimus computer lab deployment. It’s always been a beautiful ride, but the ride from Sausalito to San Francisco lands into exceptional territory. You get views of several islands, both of San Francisco’s bridges, Alcatraz, Sausalito and the city. I was so happy on this ferry ride that I even had a conversation with a couple who was in town visiting from Canada and answered piles of questions about what we were seeing. This is something that shy, introvert me hardly ever does.
We also take folks up to Twin Peaks. How many cities in the world are there where you can climb a hill and look at downtown? In San Francisco, you can go up to Twin Peaks. It’s breathtaking.
Nice bay, right? We have an ocean too. I spent my youth on the coast of Maine. I didn’t sneak out to late night parties when I was a teenager, I snuck out to go to the park and sit by the ocean. My head clearing spot? The ocean. Needed cheering up when I was depressed? Trip to the ocean. First kiss? Happened right there on the rocks by the ocean. My love for being near the coast is a pretty deep part of who I am.
From the Cliff House on the western side of the city you get some great views of the beach stretching south.
Looking north you can see the ruins of the Sutro Baths that were opened in 1896 and lasted through the middle of the 20th century. Looking beyond to the other side of the golden gate.
Further views we caught this spring are in a pair of albums on Flickr, by month: April and June