Over the Golden Gate

OK, I will confess: This morning I put on my scarf, wool sweater, hiking boots, wool gloves and my own wool knitted socks. Summer weather is so over in the Bay Area. As we left Napa and headed for San Francisco a cold front came along too. We met up with Susan Chung (she used to be a reporter at the Times Colonist in Victoria), husband Robert Bennett and their nine-year-old daughter Ling for brunch at a cool place called Le Garage on Liberty Ship Way, in Sausalito, where in fact, Norm's uncle Fred helped to build Liberty ships during the Second World War. Probably it wasn't such a trendy place back then. Next we ventured out in the rain for a hike in Marin Headlands. A great way to work off the meal and get fresh air. See Norm for details :) And now we are happily in our room at the Golden Harvest Inn on Lombard after a good walk to Fisherman's Wharf for the traditional sour dough bowl of clam chowder.
Hi from Norman: what a place San Francisco is. Where else would the Sunday newspaper include the weekly earthquake count (they had 18 here, 13 the week before) and a nice colour weather map covering two pages and showing the location of every major earthquake fault line around the Bay -- San Andreas, Hayward, Calaveras, Rodgers Creek. And that's just in a 25-mile-wide slice of California. Haven't felt any jiggling yet, but we'll be attuned.
The headlands Mary mentions are an area of former military fortifications that guarded the northern side of the Golden Gate. Even had a battery Nike missiles here during Cold War years. Now, it's a recreation area and you're free to wander the hills, look at the newts filling a round depression where big guns once sat, and try to identify the wild plants. We saw sticky monkey flowers, thanks to Susan remembering a nature walk out here with a guide. School kids can come and spend a couple of days in old barracks, a nice conversion from military use. 
An amazing amount of of San Francisco's waterfront has some military history. Our little motel on Lombard Street (we're at the non-crooked end of this long street) is next door to the Presido, which started out as a Spanish fort. Under the Golden Gate bridge at the south end are the ruins of Fort Winfield Scott, dating from pre-Civil War days. Fort Mason is farther along, a few blocks from Fisherman's Wharf, where 1.5 million men and 25 million tons of equipment were shipped out to the Pacific during four years of the Second World War. In between is Crissy Field, formerly a military airfield that parallels the Bay. Now it's all parkland.    
Tomorrow Chinatown, one of the largest in North America and we are going on a free tour! Stay tuned for details.