SF 2: Beaches, Flowers, A Bridge

Part of yesterday's wanderings included the old Sutro Baths where Geary meets the ocean.  This is actually a National Park Service National Recreation Area with an interesting history that I'll let interested parties check out here.

The walk down to the beach area was filled with blooming flowers, birds, and bees.











This seems to be a coastal bush lupine.  The pollinator appears to be a Bombus vosnesenskii or yellow-faced bumblebee.

Part of what remains of the bath, including the two egrets.  

And here's what it looks like in the ocean - which was at high tide when we were there.  

 

Then we wandered some more and got to a point west of the Golden Gate bridge near Baker's Beach.  

From the National Park Service, again:

"Battery Chamberlin holds the last 6-inch "disappearing gun" of its type on the west coast. Built near Baker Beach in 1904, Battery Chamberlin was constructed to accommodate the lighter, stronger, more powerful coastal defense artillery developed in the late nineteenth century."

The trail from the beach to the Golden Gate bridge had lots of stairs.

It was a short, but wonderful time with the grandkids, and in San Francisco.  But it's raining today, time to get back to better weather in Anchorage.  

A note on the state of affairs.  My son, at age four, did not have the word "homeless" in his vocabulary.  But his four year old son uses that word all the time.