Exploring Ocean Beach and San Francisco Coastline

We’ve been going out of the city so much to check out the coast, that we decided it was time we stayed IN the city and saw the coast! On Sunday we puttered around San Francisco.  The first thing we did was hit up the Velo Rouge Cafe for breakfast.  FANTASTIC egg and cheese croissant.  Earl said he didn’t think he’d like to go back (he was a bit peeved at how crowded it was– sidebar: anyone notice that San Francisco “good” places get completely and utterly mobbed?  What the heck?  I think it’s because people out here are so obsessed with being connected and yelp-ified that there is full disclosure of anywhere remotely good.  it’s annoying.  i miss my secret cozy, uncrowded haunts in nyc.  hopefully we’ll be able to find some like that here), but holy cow, that thing was scrumptious.  I’m sure to go back, although I might have to try it on off-hours. Next we went to Golden Gate Park.  We walked with Linus around the perimeter Spreckels Lake, where there were many remote-controlled model boats out on the lake.

Now here is where something hilarious happened. Linus, who isn’t the world’s biggest fan of water, JUMPED IN spreckels lake!! Just about immediately after the below picture was taken. I think he was trying to “get” a seagull. Earl and I were both completely confounded that he outright jumped in, particularly because he’s never really crazy about it when we make him go into the ocean or rivers when hiking.

So immediately after this photo Linus launches himself into the lake. So then he is floundering around like a drowning rat, and can’t get out because there’s a bit of a lip. Earl reached in and grabbed him out by the scruff, but I was almost surprised Earl was cognizant enough to do so, because he was nearly PARALYZED WITH LAUGHTER. Every so often, Earl and my senses of humor just don’t match up. (For example, he thinks the pooping santa is hilarious, and I just think it’s stupid). This is one of those times. Earl was guffawing like a madman after Linus jumped in the lake. I was just standing there like, “stop laughing and rescue the dog! people are looking at us!” Earl continued cracking up for a good 4 minutes, which in turn made ME get the giggles, too. So ultimately we came across as a pair of dog-abusing morons at Spreckels Lake!

Once Linus had been rescued from the lake, we saw the bison (not buffalo!) in Golden Gate Park, which I had already seen when I ran the marathon here a few years ago. Linus did not herd the buffalo. First he throws himself in the lake and then he is a herding failure. Whuttadog.

Next we admired the old wooden Dutch windmill, used previously to power water through the entire park. It is surrounded by lovely tulip gardens:

Because Linus had “fallen” into the lake, we figured he could use a good scrub down in some refreshing Pacific ocean. So across the street it was, to Ocean Beach!
Ocean Beach is huge, and not that crowded considering that it is in the middle of major city. Imagine how packed this place would be if it were in NYC?
Here were some futbol players gathered for a Sunday afternoon beach game:

It was crazy windy at Ocean Beach and there were LOTS of kitesurfers about!

Earl takes Linus to be cleaned off in the waves. I love this shot with the reflection of them and the kiteboarder in the background:

kiteboarder cruising by. we’re hoping to get into kiteboarding in the future, but decided to master surfing first. also, it’s pretty pricey compared to surfing ($350 for gear & lessons and probably about 2k in gear if you want to buy all your own stuff), so the barriers to entry are a bit higher. but doesn’t it look so fun?

a newly rinsed off Linus made a friend and a rousing game of chase ensued

At this point we had hoped to hit up the Cliff House for a cocktail or two, but it was disgustingly packed. Again with the crowds! But the view here was stunning so I couldn’t really blame everyone packed in there. Plus, I’m sure they were mostly tourists. You can kind of always tell the touristy places when they have vendors hawking wares outside on the sidewalk.

It started to rain a bit, and we walked over to go check out the historic ruins of Sutro Baths.
Looking down into the baths:

Walking around the ruins of the baths was very neat. Much like Seward Street Slides, I can’t get over how in today’s litigious society, the city just lets these places… be. They’re completely accessible and you can walk around where ever you please. There certainly are some spots where you could fall over, or into the water, and get hurt! I’m actually surprised how at this site preservationists have not restricted access.
I like this photo of the ducks in the baths and how you can see the waves crashing just on the otherside of the wall:

Seal Rock, from the cave at Sutro Baths. Apparently the seals which gifted the moniker have since migrated to Pier 49. Who can blame them? These rocks don’t look nearly as comfy as flat plastic docks, and also I bet they get lots of food incentive to be tourist-bait at the shopping mecca that is Pier 49!

Afterwards we had planned to go hike Sutro Heights Park and explore the old ruins of the castle, however the rain was coming down harder now, so we took refuge in the car and drove to the Presidio, to the Fine Arts Museum.

While walking out of the museum, we saw the holocaust memorial across the street and went to visit. A punkish-looking group of 4 people were walking over to the memorial at the same time as us, and they walked over to the main placard to take photos of themselves by it. There were two girls and two guys, and at this point I wasn’t really noticing anything they were doing.

Then one of the girls told the guy with the camera, “make sure you get these two lines,” pointing to some specific writing on the memorial plaque detailing the ## of deaths during the holocaust. She then turned her back to the camera and lifted up her shirt, revealing her back (tramp stamp area). On her back (this is when i really started watching, thinking “what the heck are they doing?”) was a thick dark line of 4 swastikas tattooed along with some block writing above it that i couldn’t make out. They spent a lot of time photographing her posing like that, showing off the tattoos. Her friends were kind of cheering and urging her on. After I saw her tattoos, I noticed that the girls had really short cropped haircuts (ie- shaved-ish) and the guys both had shaved heads. So at this point I kind of elbowed earl and pointed out what they were doing.

Then they walked down to the main memorial, which is statues of slain jews and one “imprisoned” figure behind a barbed wire fence. They started shit talking/yelling at the statues in a pissed off fashion. All kinds of slurs and stuff, and they were actually talking to the statues like they were alive, in the first person. This went on for a while and they were still there ranting and raving to the statues when we left.

This was one of the strangest and most disturbing things I’ve witnessed. First of all there’s the audacity of the blatant racism, and then i was hit with absurdity of them trying to “talk” to a statue… hello, it’s a statue, what exactly are you hoping to accomplish by screaming at it? get out your misdirected rage?

Mainly i just felt sorry that other people were there to appreciate the memorial which these fucktards were ruining. In retrospect, I’m sure these people were there more with the intent to bother other people trying to pay their respects at the memorial- more to get a rise out of them, than anything else.

At the time i considered confronting them, however decided it wouldn’t be worth it to engage them in any sort of dialogue… (also, in that case, what would you say? go home you racist kooks? not sure… and, does what they were doing fall under their civil rights to “protest” at a memorial? probably…ugh, what a can of worms).

Anyways, it was weird, and sad. I thought everyone in this city was supposed to be hopped up on peace & love and all mellowed out.

After witnessing this, Earl and I were in somber and quiet moods. We drove to Fort Point to see the historic Civil War fort, but weren’t really that gung ho about exploring all of the intricate armament rooms.
I like how in this shot you can see the Golden Gate bridge peeking over the top of Fort Point:

We stood for a bit and watched the surfers at Fort Point catching some waves under Golden Gate Bridge. They weren’t getting many good waves, and the waves that did come in kind of would steer them right into the rocks!

One thing I was bummed that we didn’t find was Hopper’s Hands. Again, I wasn’t really in the mood to run around searching for them, but think it would be cool to come back to Fort Point sometime for more of the exhibits and also to find them.

Finally, we capped off the day with dim sum in the Richmond district. I love how SF places serve dim sum all day. I finally had some xiao long bao! San Francisco Chowhounders call these XLB. It took me a while to figure that out. For the record, these XLBs were NOT as good as the ones from our favorite NYC dimsum place. So I’ll have to keep searching

These spicy red wontons, however, were superb: