Thursday, June 4, 2015

Taking a Break



After our whirlwind tour of San Francisco, we were ready to relax a bit.  But first we had to get out of town.  As usual, it was a foggy morning and the top of the Golden Gate Bridge was lost in the fog..

After we crossed the bridge, I would have liked to stop in the vista parking lot, but it was full.  Ron did a drive thru and I just snapped a picture out the window.

We stayed at the Petaluma Elks for three nights - $25 for full hookups, even sewer.  We really didn’t do much other than shopping and laundry, but one day we took a drive around Marin County.  We were going to stop at Muir Woods National Monument, but it was packed!  I don’t know if something special was going on, but the parking lots were full and cars were parked along the road for at least a mile.  Luckily, we had both been there a couple of times and we’ll see plenty of redwoods as we head north.

We stopped at a viewpoint on the Marin Headlands, and happened upon these ‘base end stations’ from World War II.  The soldiers were stationed here to watch for enemy ships entering the San Francisco harbor.

There was an interesting story about ordering parkas for these soldiers to keep them warm during the cold coastal summer.   I guess they came too late for my father who caught pneumonia and ended up in the hospital while stationed there.


I don’t know how they could watch for anything with the typical fog.  This is the view from that point.




We had a nice drive, made even better by a stop at Marin French Cheese Company.  ‘If you give free cheese, they will come.’


6 comments:

  1. Cool to be able to see where your Dad was on Duty...

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  2. During WWII, my dad got outfitted with all winter gear for Alaska. Then he and his unit boarded a ship for overseas. 40 days later, he landed on the island of Saipan in the South Pacific. Leave it to the Army! :c)

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  3. It must have been really cold just stuck in those lookouts with the wind blowing in.

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  4. Mark Twain once said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

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  5. I like the story of the parkas ... I probably had a few people scratching their heads when they saw me with two jackets on and the hoodie pulled over my head when we were waiting in the customer service lounge a few days ago. I'd have said the same thing ... you had to be there to understand ;-)

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  6. Can you imagine how boring standing in the cold looking at the fog must have been?

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