Making Like Tourists

Tiburon

Today Don and I made like tourists in our own City.  We picked up sandwiches, chips and soda from our favorite Safeway in the City.  We then  drove to the Marina, parked the car    bayfront, rolled down our windows and settled to a quiet lunch as we enjoyed the beautiful scenery around us.
 

Right in front of us the bay waters lapped at the rocks a few feet from our car.  They rippled towards us  from a long way back.  They looked like they came all the way from Tiburon which lay across the bay from us as we sat in our car. These waters travel so quietly, calmly but purposefully.  Once they reach our shore, they break up so gently but with a little swoosh to let us know that they had done their journey.





The Famous Alcatraz Prison

Slightly to our right is the famous Alcatraz Prison.  Reminds one of the Burt Lancaster movie, “Birdman of Alcatraz.”  A lot of stories have come out of this prison.  I overheard a young lady ask the tour guide about the shark-infested waters around the prison. He answered, “That is not true.”  Like the young lady, I’ve believed that sharks kept inmates from escaping this most impregnable prison.  Its fortification and icy waters were enough to keep them in.  At some point of its dark history, Alcatraz became home to many of the nation’s most incorrigible criminals.

As we lunched on our sandwiches, chips and drinks, we turned our eyes to the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.  We never tire of this bridge. I have driven on this bridge in the early morning hours when the fog hangs just slightly over a tower as the sun’s rays begin to break through, lightly touching its International Orange paint giving it a golden hue.  It is such a beautiful monument to one man’s genius and tenacity.  So many said it could not be built, but he didn’t believe them.  Underneath the bridge is where San Francisco Bay empties into the Pacific Ocean.  It would require a span across the 6,700 ft (2,042 m) strait, with water 372 ft (113 m) deep at the center of the channel.   There were frequent strong winds, swirling tides and currents accompanied by blinding fog at times. Many experts said that these would prevent construction and operation.  But Joseph Straus would not be discouraged.  Today it is considered one of the modern wonders of the world.

Two monuments, two reminders.  An impregnable prison that tells many stories about Adam’s sinful nature that lives in all of us.  The other,  a monument to the indomitable spirit in man that drives him to build that which seem to be beyond building, or to soar beyond that which seem unreachable.