We had one full day in San Francisco, including our visit to Alcatraz Island. The day was warm and fog-free, including the evening. Rare for July by San Francisco standards! We had a nice seafood dinner at Fisherman's Wharf (aka, Pier 39) at Fog Harbor Fish House -- highly recommend them! This is a very touristy spot, but fun to visit none-the-less. There are a group of sea lions that remain at Pier 39 through the summer. The rest of them migrate south to breed and have babies. In the winter they come back and there can be up to 1700 of them. They have dock landings "reserved" for them!
After a long day already, we realized we had an opportunity for clear views of the Golden Gate bridge, so we embarked on some long exposure night photography from three different areas. The first picture is Doug's favorite, taken from Bakers Beach. Found out later that this is a nude beach, but we didn't notice. Guess that shows where our priorities are! The lighting was just perfect at one hour after dusk. The second picture was a more distant view of the bridge from Christy Field when the sun tucked in behind the mountain with some reflections coming across the water and into the sandy beach. The last of the bridge pictures was taken from the other side of the bridge, driving up a dark windy road to Battery Spencer, which treated us to a cool angle of the bridge with San Francisco in the background.