What I Did Last Sunday

A few weeks back I was introduced by a friend of mine (Genevieve Brennan) to a gorgeous camping spot in the Marin Headlands right across (right across) the Golden Gate Bridge: Kirby Cove.

En route to Kirby Cove

She organized and cooked up a outdoors dinner, on the beach, under redwoods and cypress trees, with raccoons. She served vegetable tarts, lentils, fresh grilled asparagus, some kind of quinoa deal. It was delicious and magical. Take a look at the spread:

Like out of a magazine, right?

You can read more about it from her post here.

Anyhow, on the way to the cove I came across an old abandoned battery, them forts they built to take pot shots at ships coming into the San Francisco bay. It's between Battery Spencer and Battery Kirby (nee Gravelly Beach Battery). Various links online say this was Battery Wagner, but I couldn't confirm that with the GGNRA/Marin Headlands maps, and it appears from one source that Battery Wagner is closer to Battery Wagner road deep in the Headlands (whoduh thunk?). At any rate, this cool old battery has been repurposed as an outdoor mural space by a bunch of graffiti artists.

View of Battery Wagner (?) from above.

Lil' bunker at the top.

Inside lil' bunker at the top.

View from the lil' bunker at the top.

There's a trail from the top down and then you start to get into the real art.

Squirrelly!?!? 

Believe this is trash pit is former mounting for the big guns.

No pine cone is spared.

Only totally awesome!

Like I said, no cones were spared.

Creepy little bunker: "Come on in!"

Me: "Okay!" Inside creepy little bunker.

Brules Rules!

There were many inviting doorways, inviting in a Candyman way. (Sweets to the sweet!) All I had was the flashlight on my phone and the flash on my camera. What could go wrong?

Note: despite the spray cans and the occasional bottle, which is inexcusable, there was a lot less trash and litter than expected. And the real surprise was the absence of the urine smell! Really, place was pretty well kept up.

Notice the open door under the stairs? Time to go inside.

Unlearn! Fan of John Singleton's preachy Higher Learning?

Was a fireplace.

Silly Hipsters!

Evil Cloud.

And then this guy came along.

Lookit how big that dude is! He's like a 1/4 of the bass of the whole bridge! Or appears so.

Au revoir les Elephants!

It was a pretty magical spot. I will definitely be coming back.