First, was the annual party foot race, the Bay to Breakers. Even though I am an avid walker, I really don't jog, and have never participated in this popular run. It always does impact the residents out here, however. The streets start closing down, starting with the upper Great Highway.The day before I was able to take my walk on the highway with bicycles and runners passing instead of speeding cars, and when I got to Lincoln Way I could see the white tents at the beach. All the cars were detoured to the lower Great Highway. Also several other North/South streets are closed making it difficult to cross the city by any transportation. On Sunday, all the extra parking spaces are filled, and there were hoards of strangely-attired people with numbers on there chests swarming the streets.
Next was the 75th Anniversary of the Bridge. That is a significant milestone for our beautiful Golden Gate Bridge, and there were several activities on the North side of the city. All I was able to see was the photo and news articles in the paper. I do plan to walk the bridge with my husband in the near future, even though I'm deathly afraid of the heights and looking over the bridge. It feels like the water is pulling you in.
The event I planned for was the annular eclipse of the sun by the moon, which could be seen here in Northern California. In my city, it was a partial eclipse. I wanted to see it because I was curious and because it's not often I have a chance to see such a phenomena. I wanted to watch it safely, since I well know how the sun can ruin one's eye sight, so I picked the viewing at the Academy of Sciences. The e-mail sent to me from the members newsletter said to be on the stairs of the Academy around 5:15 p.m., so my husband, son and I started out around 4:00 to find parking outside the park in this parking-challenged neighborhood. My husband dropped us off at 9th and Judah so we could walk, while he found a space not far off. We all met at the baseball diamond and continued on towards the bandstand area. As we were walking, I could see the remnants of the Bay to Breakers crowd going in the opposite direction. They were very noticeable in their green smurf costumes, toga outfits, ballet tutu's, and their high spirits. One toga-clad young man yelled something at me in some unidentifiable language and walked on--I hope it was something nice.
Soon we neared the Academy and I could see only a few people gathering around some men in orange coats setting up telescopes. I half-expected to see thousands of spectators crowding around to catch a glimpse through the viewing equipment, so I was delighted that we were among the first to be there. Soon more people started arriving, but the crowd was always manageable and very polite. There were lots of families with young children, youngish adults, and grandmotherly people, like me. We all stood in line to look through the telescopes which had filters on them. We were also given special, filtered glasses, which we had to share. Eventually people started putting the glasses over their cell phone cameras to take photos. Other people had pinhole papers and were projecting the image of the sun onto the pavement. Another young man sitting next to us on the cement wall had his camera set up with telephoto lens and was able to capture a very good picture of the eclipse on his screen, giving us a private viewing. I shared my highly prized, special glasses with many people, and especially with children who were delighted. One little boy was trying to look at the sun wearing sunglasses with his mother standing next to him. I quickly told him not to look at the sun directly and shared my glasses with him. The event turned out to be a fun, friendly, community experience.
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