The Yard at Mission Bay

The Yard at Mission Bay is FINALLY open!!!  The B Man and I had to go and check out the new neighborhood gem in Mission Bay.   The all year-round pop up venue called The Yards has opened behind AT&T Park.  Anchor Brewing beer is the anchor (ha ha, the puns) to the area and there are many food trucks and retail stores in the small area.  Much like that at Hayes Valley, this urban park is all reused shipping containers.  

Interesting that they took away 76 parking spots in an already small parking area to build this venue, but we all know how much more $$$$ they'll get here rather than in parking.  Between the beers, food trucks, shopping and weekly food markets, there's much to explore at the Yard.  There's even free yoga on Saturday & Sunday from 10am-11am, I'll have to check it out!  I see spending a lot of time here in the near future....

What you see when you come around the corner over the bridge.

I'm always intrigued by these little machines. They measure how many plastic bottles have been saved over time by simply reusing other water bottles.  The sun was shining and I was thirsty, so I asked for a reusable plastic cup to fill up.

Mmmm bbbeeeerrrrrr....

The sun was shining and it was a perfect day to be outside!

Anchor brewing

Not sure who chose that color scheme for the logo, but it does look good against the grey paint.

Signage

Perfect spot for beers with friends!

Fort Point

 

After our jaunt to see the Palace of Fine Arts, I requested that we go to Fort Point, which is under the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was a hike to get there, but MAN was it worth it!! The views were incredible and I've never been UNDER the bridge!  And we were really lucky to have sunny weather too!

Fort Point was built between 1853 and 1861 at the mouth of the bay, to protect the bay from attack.  Its said that the Golden Gate Bridge was built to resemble the arches in Fort Point, if you look underneath the bridge, you can see the resemblance in the architecture.

 The first site of the Golden Gate Bridge is always a bit breathtaking!

 

Walking along the path around Crissy Field to get there

Stopped for a selfie

Hello beautiful....

First sign and entrance!

The undercarriage of the bridge is built to resemble the arches of Fort Point

You can see the resemblance here.

I mean, look at that sunny sky!!

It was super super windy!!

Beautiful view back of the city!

I could look at this view every day!  I had such a fun jaunt to Fort Point with the B Man.  I had forgotten just how FAR of a trek to the bridge was, but it was well worth the view!

Palace of Fine Arts - 100 Year Anniversary of the World Fair

Last week I had to attend a Junior League event out in the Presidio (basically the OTHER side of town!), so I made the B man join me to do some exploring.  We walked past the Palace of Fine arts and happened to fall into the 100 year anniversary of the World Fair and its expo about the event and the time in San Francisco.  This area was built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition to celebrate the opening of the Panama canal.  It was surreal to read about the area and the purpose of the expo....think about it, this was at a time where the only way people could get information about the vast world out there was to attend a World Fair.  This fair also celebrated the city's rebirth after the 1906 earth quake.

This is the last standing part of the fair and it had fallen into disrepair until 1965 when it was taken down and rebuilt. Over 9 months, nearly 19 million people visited the expo...that is incredible to think about!!  Pretty interesting to see what was innovative 100 years ago...such as the first telephone, model T car, and airplane....crazy to think its only been 100 years!

Its pretty much a hike across the city (I live on one end and it lives on the other) so I don't get out here very often, but when I do, especially on a clear blue day like today, its amazing!!)

B Man ruining my photo, like always

Just LOOK at that sky today!!

Ugh...me trying to get a photo and B Man doing animal puppets....typical of my life now..

Fire engine from the early 1900s!

One of the original fire places that warmed up one of the buildings at the expo

A replica of Ford's first automobile that was shown off at the fair.

CINDERELLA vs BELLE: Princess Rap Battle (Sarah Michelle Gellar & Whitne...

If you haven't seen this yet, its a MUST!!!!



Sarah Michelle Gellar is magical!

Sequoias at Yosemite

After wanting to push the B Man off the cliff the day before, we got up and drove back into the park and visited the sequoia trees!!!  I've always wanted to visit these behemoths!  I've seen some pretty large ones at Muir Woods, but these were supposedly much larger...and they did not disappoint!

Mariposa Grove is on the southern side of Yosemite park.  We got up early again to make it back into the park and it was like we were the only ones there....so quiet and serene! If you are trying to go, you only have a few more months before its closed down for 24 months!!  Jump on that bandwagon and cross this off your list!

Pretty cool park!

This is one of the trees that had fallen over...it was HUGE!!

I should have taken a picture next to it, but by the time we had gotten back around to the entrance where this was located, there were like 30 tourists there.

SO HUGE!!!

Me standing next to the tree to show the size, it must have been over 6 feet wide!!

This group of trees is called the Bachelor and 3 Graces....according to Wikipedia, "A group of four trees, three of them growing very close together, with a fourth a little more distant. Their roots are so intertwined that if one of them were to fall, it would likely bring the others along with it."

This tree is 2,000 years old!!!  And is the oldest tree in the park but is not the largest in the park.

This is the "The California Tunnel tree: Cut in 1895 to allow coaches to pass through it (and as a marketing scheme to attract visitors to the grove), this is the only living tree with a tunnel in it since the fall of the Wawona Tunnel Tree in 1969."

B Man had to get into the action too!

This one is "The Faithful Couple: A rare case in which two trees grew so close together that their trunks have fused together at the base."

This is the base of the Faithful Couple.

This youngin' was dedicated in 1930...so its 85 years old and still so tiny compared to the others!

Just LOOK at the SIZE of those pine cones!! As big or bigger than my feet!  Guess that's what it takes to make such a large tree!  And that would hurt like shit if one of those would fall on your head on its way down!!

Was pretty cool to see people's etchings from 1957...not so cool to see one of the trees defaced a day prior to our arrival.  People really should treat these national parks with better care.  This one was done way before we understood the importance of these national parks to our history and future.