A Birthday in San Francisco

I reached a milestone birthday in 2020 (one of many – the older I get, the more each birthday seems like it should be a milestone). So we celebrated with a little party in San Francisco with some family and friends. Others may have taken a photo or two during the event but I did not, preferring to just enjoy the time with everyone.

However, we did hang around the city and environs for a couple of more days with our regular traveling friends, Lew and Louise, and did some sightseeing with them. One day we drove up to the wine country. None of us were really interested in tasting or buying wine but enjoyed a look at the countryside during a time when we rarely visit. As you can see, in the photo at the top of this post, and in the one to the right, the vines have no leaves and have been pruned to encourage new growth for the coming year.

We did stop at one winery, the ever-stuffy Opus One, which while architecturally interesting, looks more like a mausoleum than a winery (to me — your mileage may vary). Have a look:

On another day, I took the group to visit Fort Point, something L&L had never seen before. This old fort, built before the Civil War, sits directly under the San Francisco side of the Golden Gate Bridge (as seen in the photo on the left, below). In the center top, an image of a part of the bridge which was specifically built to span over the fort (so it would not have to be destroyed when the bridge was built). On the right, an image of the bridge as seen from below. The bottom photo shows the force of the surge as waves come at the rocky edge laterally and still create quite large breakers.