Golden Gate Bridge--Isn't Shiny!

Who knew?

Actually, I did know that the Golden Gate Bridge wasn't actually a "golden" colored gate-type bridge quite some time ago. I do know that this bridge spans the entrance to the San Francisco Bay, and the entrance itself has long been known as the "Golden Gate." The Golden Gate Bridge is just the bridge that crosses the Golden Gate.

But I still wish it were sparkly.

One of the last things we did before leaving SF last weekend was to walk across the GGBridge, something we had never done before. It took us almost an hour to walk across one way, but that was because we had to keep stopping and taking pictures. The girlies got VERY tired of having to pose and smile. Mostly for their daddy, which is unusual, since he's usually taking art shots, and I'm the one snapping holiday pics and snapshots of the kids.

Anyway, we started on the SF side, which quickly carries you over a Civil War era fort, that was placed to protect San Francisco from Confederate attack. A second fort was also built on Alcatraz Island, which later became the infamous prison. This picture was taken by sticking my lens through the fence and trying to point down as much as possible. You can see the round gun mounts around the fort. What you can't see is that it is three stories tall, with a large central parade ground. As a certified History Geek, I would have loved to spend about 3 hours crawling around it. We just didn't have time on this trip.

Here we have Mr. Sweetie and the kidlets walking along in front of me. I was most surprised to find that the mesh fence covering the side of the bridge above the fort did NOT continue all the way across the bridge. Given the allegedly romantic allure of committing suicide by jumping from this bridge in particular, I had expected to see a lot more fencing and other dissuasions. Instead, there were four separate Crisis Hotline emergency phones placed across the span. Each had signs warning that jumping from the bridge would be "fatal and tragic," while offering help and hope from counselors on the phones.

Bunny didn't understand what "crisis counseling" was--it does sort of sound like a quick course in How To Have A Crisis. For Dummies!

This is my one "artistic" shot--looking up one of the towers from the very base. I actually am quite fond of this picture--a combination of vertigo and infinity, wrapped up in a man-made artifact. It's almost Zen.


There. Now I hope that cleansed the bile out of your mouth after that last post. It's like a Blogger Altoid.

You are welcome.