This day marked the halfway point of our trip and was one of the best days of the entire trip. After breakfast at the apartment, we drove about 1.5 hours north to Tomales Bay for fresh oysters, then back down the coast to San Francisco where we had a great evening at the Giant Camera and the De Young Art Museum. Lots of pictures today…
Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. Photo by Sarah.
Our destination on Tomales Bay was the Hog Island Oyster Company. We had to make reservations a couple months in advance, but this place was worth it. It may have been Blake’s favorite event of the whole trip. Fantastic! Photo by Blake.
Oysters are harvested from the bay, sorted, cleaned, and served or shipped right here. Photo by Blake.
Slurpable, burpable, juicy sweet oyster meat, precious! Photo by Blake.
Super shuckers. Photos by Blake.
Seals sunbathing on a sandbar. Bolinas Lagoon. Photo by Blake.
Muir Beach Lookout. This is a World War II-era army observation post employed after the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor to spot ships that might attack the west coast. Photo by Blake.
Graffiti inside one of the bunkers. Photo by Sarah.
Blake at Muir Lookout. From here, we had planned to hike around the lush forest and coastal redwood trees of Muir Woods National Monument, but the parking lot was full and the line of cars parked along the roadside extended two miles from the trailhead, so we decided to head back to San Francisco. Photo by Sarah.
Back at the Golden Gate. Photo by Sarah.
Teen-boy Kenny decided that he wanted to chill at the apartment for the evening, so the rest of us wandered down along the beach to the Cliff House near the old Sutro Baths. Photo by Sarah.
Something we had been looking forward to was the Giant Camera at the Cliff House. Photo by Blake.
The Giant Camera is a camera obscura that was, as anticipated, amazing. What one sees is natural light directed from outside onto a large white dish inside. While in the dark interior, you experience light reflected in real time off objects outside. This is a physical principle of light rendered manifest by ancient technology that operates the same way as our eyes as well as mechanical cameras. Notice Sam’s hand on the disc in the left image. Photos by Blake.
Pelican and motorboat. We ate at Louis’s Diner before heading to the De Young Art Museum in Golden Gate Park. Photo by Blake.
Sam with an Andy Goldsworthy installation outside the De Young. We saw three Goldsworthy installations in San Francisco – Blake liked this one, called Drawn Stone, for the way it was integrated into architecture and materials of the museum’s entry plaza and for its minimal qualities. The stone blocks also function as benches (or cool things for elevating the perspective of young people). Notice the continuous subtle crack that runs through the pavers and blocks of stone. Sarah liked a Goldsworthy piece that was at the Presidio, which we visited a couple days later. Photo by Sarah.
In the galleries there were two Thomas Moran paintings from the De Young’s collection side-by-side – one representing Yellowstone Falls and the other of Grand Canyon. Above is a little photographic recollection of our trip to Yellowstone last year…
…and a peek at what’s to come at Grand Canyon later in the trip. Photos by Blake.
We knew that the De Young had one of James Turrell’s Skyspaces, but didn’t see it on the museum map. A security officer directed us to the sculpture garden where we found it. From the outside, it just looks like a mound of earth tucked into one side of the sculpture garden. Photo by Blake.
Inside is a quiet place where we lingered for a long while, as it should be. Photo by Blake.
It was a night of light. On the left is another image from inside the camera obscura, and on the right is one from inside Turrell’s Three Gems. Another good way to finish the day. Photos by Blake and Sarah.
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