Over the Golden Gate

We didn't go out walking today: the forecast was for torrential rain, so I spent the morning hacking a path through the garden (to the compost bin and beyond!), and felt justified when the torrents materialised as promised this afternoon. Fortunately, other Sundays are also available...

The day after the wedding, we followed the route recommended by klwilliams's brother, straight up the freeway and over the Golden Gate. We stopped to admire the bridge, of course - who would believe we'd been to San Francisco if we didn't bring home photos? - but the city was celebrating the bridge's 75th birthday by surrounding it with roadworks and 'keep out' signs. Perhaps that's why, after a good look from each end of the bridge, I still felt only: "Well, yes, it's a bridge." Sorry about that.

We should probably have stopped in Sausalito, but we didn't. We'd barely set off again from the bridge, and by the time I'd registered that this was a very charming little town we were passing, we'd passed it. We'd stop at the next one... Only of course there wasn't a next one, there never is. There was, instead, a coastal drive with plenty of opportunities to stop and stroll and enjoy the view, none of which we took because we were by now in looking-for-lunch mode. I enjoyed the drive, but not as much as I should have, and it's my own fault.

Eventually we found lunch at the Parkview Café in Stinson Beach. There were moules frites for durham_rambler, so he was happy, and there were Dungeness crab cakes for me, made from local Dungeness crabs (from which I infer that that this is a variety of crab, rather than one imported from Kent - ah, yes, and in fact it comes from some other Dungeness altogether. Ah, well). After lunch we walked on the beach, and told each other that this really was the Pacific, and were impressed, and paddled in it briefly.

Further north, we crossed the Bay by the Richmond - San Rafael bridge; just before the bridge, a handy pull-in allowed us to admire the bridge itself, to identify the local wildlife, none of which we were seeing, and in my case to photograph without getting killed by traffic the brilliant purple flowers planted along the highway verges, with which I was becoming obsessed (it turns out to be the ice plant, or hottentot fig, and I kept trying to photograph it, without ever catching the vibrancy of the pink flowers against the carpet of fleshy green leaves).

We weren't quite ready to call it a day, and our map marked a 'Rosie the Riveter Memorial', which was intriguing. Richmond was the site of major shipyards during the war, and seems to have reconstituted itself as a National Historical Park to present its stories of the Home Front, with much emphasis on the the contributions of women workers (the term "Rosies" sounds patronising to me: one Rosie the Riveter is an inspiring symbol, but I'd rather real women's lives weren't overshadowed by that symbol. But that's secondary). The memorial is a structure in a park beside the marina, not a thing of beauty in itself but a framework for telling the story - this page gives quite a clear idea of it.

So that was Sunday, and Monday was washing day, and on Tuesday we went to Santa Cruz. In fact we went to Santa Cruz twice, but that's another story.