Sing it now: "Do You Want to Go.....o to San Fran cis co?"

Going into the city; we counted 18 toll lanes available on this bridge from Oakland into San Francisco.

Looking in the distance to Filbert's Street. The very top of the photo is where we will be to come down a few pictures below.

Homes built for the street.

At the top of the steepest street in America (39% grade); you cannot see the rest of the street when you start down.

Regular sidewalks need steps like these to get up and down such steep grades.

We are the vehicle at the top coming down.

A very curvy picturesque street with many crowded people at the bottom taking pictures of it.

Trolley car coming through

Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Point

This is before we got close enough to about get blown away; the wind is very strong near and on the bridge.

Getting ready to walk on the sidewalk on top of the bridge

Giant cables that are 34 inches wide in diameter and have 27,000 wires running through them.

View of the city looking back after crossing the bridge to the Sausilito side.

Driving on the bridge. There is not much median between the 2 sides of traffic.

Bunker on the other side of the bridge; one of many.

Down below the bridge at another fort location looking back at it.

Marina with the city in the background

Another bunker near another fort on this other side of the bridge

Jackson in a rare still moment on the bunker. He asked me to take his picture; he loves to pose for the camera.

The children liked playing on the bunkers the best of all we did until we got to the ocean that is.

Tunnel, one lane, one way at a time, going to the ocean area beyond the bay. Once you go through you have to come back through to get out of this beach area. The light stays red for 5 minutes while anyone from the other side comes through and then it stays green for 5 minutes for this side.

The Pacific Ocean; later we drove to the top of the cliff behind Sarah Kelly and saw the lighthouse and a great view of the bridge and the city beyond.

At the ocean; it was cold and windy but these children didn't seem to care; we had to call them to come back after awhile.

Sunset over the Pacific.

Remember the song? "Do you want to g...o... to San Francisco? Will you we..ar flowers in your hair?" Maybe I somewhat wrote the lyrics right and that is all I know of the song. We decided after church and lunch on Sunday to go to the city.
First I want to give you the link to this church: http://www.claytonvalleychurch.com/ The pastor was so awesome (again) this Sunday that I am going to go back and listen to some of his previous sermons. It was so refreshing to hear a pastor proclaim the literal creation of the earth in 6 days, a literal Adam and Eve, a literal flood and support sanctity of life in his sermon. Jeff was able to go with us this week as he has not had to work the last 4 days and he really enjoyed it too. He met all the people we met last week and thought as I did that this is a very friendly church; lots of fellowship happens here.
After lunch we headed out. It was a quick trip since it was Sunday and no rush hour traffic. We decided to drive and not take the BART (Bay Area Regional Transportation) from near here. It was a long bridge across from Oakland and then we went straight to the steepest street (39% grade) in America. At first we weren't going to drive down it but Jeff changed his mind. It was a little scary. You start down the hill and at one point you are on the brink of it; looking out the front window and there's no street to be seen; that's how severe the drop-off is. You start down the street and you feel like you are going to tip over. I cannot imagine how people parallel park on these types of streets. We also went down a very very curvy steep one; it must be very popular; lots of people were either driving down it or taking pictures of it.
We then went over to the Golden Gate (circa 1937). Suffice it to say, the children were impressed. We went underneath it to Fort Point which is a replica fort of Fort Sumter (same shape and design) and saw lots of batteries on both sides of the bridge from the post Civil War days that I don't remember seeing before. Of course we drove across it away from the city and walked along the walkway on top of it. Amazing to me on a Sunday was the amount of traffic inching along going the other way, into the city. Later on the other side of the bridge we still saw traffic slowly heading that way. At 9 pm when we were heading back, the traffic was backed up for miles and miles and miles. I have no idea where all those people had been or what they were doing. Earlier I thought they were probably headed into the city for dinner or to do something else. By evening though, I'm thinking they had gone out for the day and were headed back home into the city. There's no way to tell, but I do know when we finally saw the end of the line, it was in the downtown of Sausilito, a good good ways from the bridge.
After crossing the bridge, we went to several overlooks and explored an old battery near another Fort. Then we went through the neatest tunnel that goes under highway 101 and is one-way for 5 minutes at a time. On the other side, we were able to go straight to the ocean. Even though it was colder by sunset, most of them enjoyed the beach and seeing the Pacific Ocean. Elizabeth elected to stay with me while I fed the baby.
We were all tired when we arrived home but it was fun and we hope to go back once this week and then again this coming weekend for some particular things we want to do there. This is the largest city any of the children have ever been in and Jeff and I have not been there since 1995. One interesting occurence, interesting to me anyway, was the amount of tourists, like us. It seemed as if everybody we saw had a camera and was taking pictures everywhere. We also saw lots of families all over downtown and the parks and green spaces were full of people enjoying the Sunday afternoon sunshine. I'm sure we'll have more adventures when we go back. It was so fun to see the little ones' reactions to such largeness on such a grand scale. Sunday was about large bridges, large buildings, large hills, large crowds, and large hearts of those who have accepted us graciously into their congregation; a large day.