San Francisco, Part 2

Men's Fall Knitting Retreat

Fort Barry, site of Battery Mendell, was one of a series of military installation created to defend San Francisco from invasion by sea. The guns at Mendell were dismantled in 1943; the installation remains and is open to tourists. You can read about all that here.

The YMCA Outdoor and Conference Centre at Point Bonita is located in the buildings of Mendell. As one might expect at what was a military installation, the concrete block buildings are low and simple. Sleeping accommodations and bathrooms are spartan. (WonderMike has some pictures here on his flicker set. In fact, he has some great pictures encompassing the entire weekend: lots of pics of the participants and the venue.) It functions as a "camp" and is entirely suitable for that purpose. (During our stay, a youth group was there doing ..um...I don't know what.) And it served us well, too.

This was our camp. The building in front is the barracks dorm. Behind that is the mess hall cafeteria. (Food was respectable and plentiful.) The building left-rear holds administrative offices, the first aid room, and on the very left end is our meeting room.

While setting up the room, I looked out the window and saw this deer. There were several in the area, often just outside the back windows of the room. They were cautious, but clearly used to being around people.

The event was a mix of classes, conversation, show'n'tell and hanging out.

Michael taught a spindle-spinning class. (And did a bang-up job.)

Stephen introduced some to the craft of sock-knitting.

Michael and Kyle tuned up their sock-knitting machines. (Men and their toys.)

We went for walks, and took pictures. (Click to enlarge.)

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Anyway, you get the idea. A good time was had by all, I think. Sunday rolled around a bit too soon for me. Stephen and I drove back to his place in the city, picked up his handsome husband Chris, and we went to a nice German restaurant for dinner. (I had sauerbraten with potato dumplings and red cabbage, washed down with beer, finished off by chocolate pudding with vanilla sauce. Splendid.) Then back to Kevin and Jeff's to get a good night's sleep to prep for my days visiting the city and area.

Comments

[lori]

looks like an awesome time. i would love to know more men who consider sock-knitting machines to be toys... so much more peaceful than power drills and 4-wheelers. ;)

[anne marie in philly]

WOW!

deer like that appear in my backyard on a regular basis.

I recognized kenny in a pix - yea me!

looks like fun for all!

[Mary in MN]

Loving the report on your retreat. The Harry in some of the pics from the retreat, is he by any chance the Harry who used to post on Sheep Thrills who raised Icelandic sheep? I think he lived in New York somewhere.