Kirby Cove and San Francisco

We try to make a camping trip to Kirby Cove an annual adventure, in spite of how difficult it is to secure a campsite down there. Three months ago I was very timely with my click on the NPS website at exactly 7:00AM and scored our favorite site – campground four – for a long weekend with the Taylors and McGees.

The other two families and Lisa were one day behind us, so the kids and I enjoyed our first night in the campground solo with a quick visit from Suzanne, who drove over for a few glasses of wine by the fire. We spent an action-packed day number one surfing at Rodeo Beach, followed by a tour of Nike Missile Site SF-88. SF-88 was super interesting, the free docent-led tour of the country’s most well preserved Nike site was a journey through cold war history culminating in us getting to witness one of the decommissioned missiles get elevated into firing position from its underground bunker. Amazing to think the servicemen manning the missiles would have been required to stay at the missile sites for years at a time during the Cold War. We finished up the afternoon with a bike ride over the Golden Gate into Chinatown, stopping at the kids’ favorite boba tea joint and finally an obligatory meal of dim sum and salt and pepper chicken wings at Capital. Man, their chicken wings are just so good!

Lisa, the McGees and the Taylors joined us at various times during the evening on Friday, the whole clan enjoying beers and wine around the fire while the kids were on cloud nine being able to explore the campground solo. We ventured back into the city all together on Saturday, and although the weather certainly wasn’t cooperating – we were dealt some heavy August SF mist for most of the day – we didn’t let it dampen our spirits, enjoying some time in Dolores Park and dinner at Mission Chinese before heading back to camp. Such a fun weekend, same again next year!