Presidio Take Two

We visited the Presidio a while back here, but that was barely scratching the surface when we went to the Palace of Fine Arts and Exploratorium so we decided to go back. We spent a good chunk of our past Sunday exploring the area thanks to the free shuttle around the park called PresidiGo... clever.

To give a little bit of history, the Presidio was founded in 1776 by the Spainards and later taken over by the US Military in 1846. It was the center for US defense during WWII and recently closed in 1995. Now there are commercial and residential tennants occupying some of the old military buildings.

Here is Immigrant Point and the view of land just north of the bay across the Golden Gate Bridge. Unfortunately we couldn't get a view of the bridge, but there were some large ships going in and out of the bay. It's nice to see the actual ocean every once in a while. For some reason it seems so different than the bay. It must be the never ending amount of water and no land on the horizon.

Near Immigrant Point was a WWII memorial for all of the men lost or buried at sea in the Pacific Ocean. There were 413 names in all. It was such a peaceful memorial.

We made our way to Inspiration Point and once again, no view of the bridge. It was hazy, but we had a good view of the Palace of Fine Arts and Alcatraz.

Funny story: my cousin Tina sent me a picture of a helmet our grandma wears while picking up walnuts. We were both laughing and giving grandma a hard time about it while Joe and I were walking through this trail with lots of trees:

And wouldn't you know it, right when Joe mentioned how he actually wished he had grandma's helmet to protect him under all of the trees a bird decided to poop on my forehead. No joke... I felt it, but wasn't sure what it was. I told Joe to snap a picture before cleaing it up. It was too funny not to share!

My aunt and uncle told us about artist Andy Goldsworthy and his sculpture at the Presidio. In 2008 he created this sculpture with trees that had fallen in the woods. It was pretty amazing to see in person and up close. Google his other works... they're pretty amazing too!

This picture gives you a better idea of how tall the spire is.

We have pretty much seen everything there is to see at the Presidio. Mark that off the list!