Saturday 28th April 2007. Sacramento, California.

American Freeway's...Beginning in the 1910's and carrying on to the 1930's US car companies bought out many of the great trolley/cable car systems and began systematically dismantling the infra-structure thus creating a need for a car in the world's leading economy. This is one reason why so many street cars could be found around the USA in the 1950's as diners and one reason why Los Angeles, the great City of the Freeway and modern transportation, is notoriously difficult to negotiate on foot.


I find this morning that my shoulder is also rather painful from the fall but I am up and off and George and I are heading back into the Bay area to picnic.

San Francisco Bay and its portal the Golden Gate were accidently discovered by Spanish explorers and it was only because of this discovery that a city was founded here.

Our destination is the Marin Headlands, but not before a lovely drive through the grasslands that lie between Sacramento and San Francisco.

Here at the Headlands you get spectacular views of the bay and the sailboats and Alcatraz...and of course the city and its bridges.

Towering almost 1,000ft above sea level this is an area of coastal bluffs, coves, wind-swept ridges, lagoons and beaches. It is home to back-country trails and historic fortifications.

It is up here that I catch my first sight of the state flower, the California Poppy, just growing wild.

We are actually picnicing at Battery Spencer which remained in active service until 1943. Completed in 1897 and named after Joseph Spencer, a Major-General in the army during the American Revolution this battery is part of defensive fortifications that in the past military strategists believed were vital.

The idea being that if enemy ships could be kept out of the Strait of San Francisco then the city would remain safe. The headlands thus became host to a variety of fortifications beginning with the earthwork emplacements of the 1870's on this strategic high ground, a key point for coastal defence.

For around 100 years the US military considered San Francisco Bay to be the most strategically important harbour on the West Coast. Early fortifications such as Alcatraz and Fort Point focused their short-range firepower on the inner harbour. Gun Batteries were built further afield as range and accuracy increased. These batteries had rifled guns, some with ranges of more than 10 miles, aimed offshore to sink enemy ships before they could reach the Golden Gate.

As a later fortification, Battery Spencer was constructed of concrete and partially buried behind a wide parapet of earth with the approach road below ground level to protect it from enemy view.

Immediately after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 the US Army temporarily placed anti-aircraft guns near the toll plaza at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge and posted sentries on the bridge. The aim was to prevent the air attacks that would imperil San Francisco and its dazzling new bridge.

The Bridge which I picnic above today...

The Golden Gate Bridge was designed by chief engineer Joseph Strauss and was constructed between 1933 and 1937. The concrete piers at the base of the towers went in first, in cold deep water with a strong tidal current. The art-deco towers were then erected on the piers and the suspension cables were emplaced to allow the road deck to be installed in sections from each end.

Opened to vehicles in May of 1937, ahead of schedule and under of budget, here are a few facts about the Golden Gate:

220ft is the clearance under the bridge for shipping;
746ft is the height of the towers;
4,200ft is the length of the main span (i.e. between the towers), making the bridge the longest suspension bridge in the world until 1964;
7,650ft is the length of each cable, which are 36 and a half inches in diameter;
80,000 miles is the total length of wire in the two cables...that's more than 3 times the distance around the earth at the equator;
the roadbed can drop as much as 10ft under extreme load and temperature with the centre span able to swing 27ft in either direction;
43 million pounds is the weight of the steel used to construct the bridge;
600,000 is the total number of field-driven rivets holding the bridge together...

and yes, it took 27 years to re-paint and thus this has only been done once since 1937, but continual spot-painting occurs to retard corrosion.

We took a late afternoon view of the city from Golden Gate Parks' de Young Fine Arts Museum tower. From the observation floor you get a 360-degree view of the west end of the city taking in landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge.

This beautiful building was designed by the Pritzker Prize winning architects Herzog & de Meuron to integrate art, architecture and nature and it works!!

I was intreged by Andy Goldsworthy's Drawn Stone (2005) installation. Goldsworthy is known to use natural material to create forms that lie just beyond the realm of the possible in nature thus heightening the viewers awareness of the fine line between nature and culture.

This particular installation was inspired by California's tectonic topography where he has made a continuous seemingly random crack running from the edge of the road to the museum entrance. The stones used were originally from Goldsworthy's native Yorkshire.

We then head out to explore Golden Gate Park which is one of the largest urban parks in the world with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area encompassing more than 72,000 acres with 28 miles of coastline.

The Golden Gate Pavilion was dedicated in 1981 as a symbol of the friendship between San Francisco and its sister city of Taipei...but I do wonder...If you really believed in peace and love why would you need to vandalise the Pavilion by carving this into its marble?

We park along the Pacific Ocean here on Highway 1 (the Great Highway) to explore the 5 mile long Ocean Beach and naturally the Cliff House (of which there have been 3 in total, the first two being destroyed by fire with the current building being erected in 1909). This is also where you will find the Camera Obscura which was sadly closed, and the site of the Sutro Ocean Baths.

The first Cliff House was built by the real estate developer Charles Butler in 1863 and was a frame and clapboard edifice extremely popular with the well-healed who could afford to pay the toll roads, horses and menu prices; thus it was expanded in 1868.

By the early 1880's transportation had improved such that 'ordinary' folks could make the trip and the Cliff House was abandoned by high society. Captain Julius Foster who ran the operation for Butler then turned to a more sporting clientele.

In 1881 Adolph Sutro bought the Cliff House and 1,000 surrounding acres, moved into the cottage on the promontory and hired James Wilkins to make it a "respectable resort".

Adolph Sutro had been born in Aachen, Germany the son of a successful apparel manufacturer. He was well educated in engineering and science. After the death of his father, the revolutions in Europe changed his direction, and the young Sutro took his family to America arriving in San Francisco aboard the California in 1851 where he went into the sundries business.

Sutro visited Comstock Mine and saw the need for an engineering background so he secured the rights, sought venture capital and oversaw the completion of venting and drainage tunnels. He sold his shares for $5,000,000 and came back to San Francisco a very rich man.

This shore land he had bought was deemed worthless; yet men were employed, wells drilled, infrastructure installed and thousands of trees planted and the Land's End Scenic Railroad was born. However in 1894 the first Cliff House burned down, but only two years later he re-opened the site with a French Chateau style building along with the Sutro Baths.

The Sutro Baths officially opened to a dazzled public in 1896. Through their elaborate system of pools, tunnels and pumps the six swimming tanks were filled by ocean tides. Two acres of glass arched over the steam-heated pools, three restaurants, theatre and a museum with rare plants, animals and (as was popular at the time) Egyptian artefacts. This complex could service up to 25,000 people for a dime.

Classic Greek decor opened onto a massive glass enclosure with five tanks holding 1,685,000 gallons of water at various temperatures and the baths could accommodate 1,600 bathers. The water in te tanks could be changed in an hour with the tides.

A major San Francisco figure, Sutro was elected Mayor in 1895. A man of both art and intellect he amassed a large art collection in his lifetime and he is considered to have had the finest library in the United States at the time.

The baths were the last major recreation project of the millionaire Adolph Sutro (he died in 1898) and by 1937 they were losing money and the main tank had to be converted to an ice-skating rink. The baths were sadly demolished in 1966 when a fire levelled the structures.

In 1907 the Cliff House burned to the ground again and Sutro's daughter Emma rebuilt with the new Cliff House opening in 1909 upholding the tradition of fine-dining.

Two world wars and a depression though were to take their toll and the Cliff House was sold to George Whitney in 1952 being re-modelled several times before in 1977 the Headlands and the Cliff House were purchased by the National Park Service for use as a visitor centre. The Cliff House continues to be run by Dan and Mary Hountalas, as it has since 1972, and in 2004 it was restored to the elegance of its history.


The story of the schooner Parallel that was 'blown to atoms' in 1887...

The two-masted 148 ton Parallel left San Francisco for Astoria, Oregon with a mixed cargo and 42 tons of black powder and dynamite. Capt W. C. Miller fought against difficult winds for two days and finally gave the abandon-ship order putting the seven man crew into a lifeboat before the ship went on to the rocks off Point Lobos and the Cliff House.

The crew rowed to Sausalito but told no one of the dangerous cargo. Miller was later criticised for his actions.

A crew from the life-saving station (later the U.S. Coast Guard) at Golden Gate Park went to the wreck finding no crew onboard, but they did save a forgotten dog. At around 1.30 am on January 16th 1887 the ship exploded badly damaging The Cliff House and Cottage and Adolph Sutro's residence on The Heights as well as injurying three of the life savers. Debris was blown for a mile and the blast was felt 15 miles away at sea.