On Sunday we rented a canoe at Jack London Square in Oakland and paddled around the canal between Oakland and Alameda. Actually, we went pretty far down the canal. Lots of houseboats, sailboats, and lots of expensive boats, and some just about to fall apart. Barges with cranes, old big docks with rotting piers and containers piled high. On the way back to where we started, for about 600 yards we kept up pretty well with a 30 foot sailboat tacking down the estuary.

Our arms got a pretty good work out. Afterward we drove over to Alameda, to the old airstation, which was decommissioned about 10 years ago. It's a beautiful empty space with numerous buildings and enormous hangers, some of which have been converted to civilian use -- that is rented out to companies. Hanger one is a brewery for an upscale vodka. There is a tasting room/bar inside. The whole place would also qualify as a superfund site (think 50 years of aircraft paint solvents, dumped here and there), so you wouldn't want to live there. There's a little museum, that we'll hit another day, and outside that big plaques commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid, and the 20th anniversary of the base (1940 to 1960). It's pretty poignant -- everywhere. The Hornet is there too, and about 10 big merchant marine ships docked as well. The runway area is a fenced off bird preserve, a Least Tern habitat, which only nests in a few places in NorCal, but although you can't go out there the spaces on the other tarmacs are enormous. The kids climbed around on a few 3" flak guns, that must have come off of ships years ago. I don't think they were for real use at the base.

This was the stamp on one of the 3 inch guns. GM. Fischer Body plant in Detroit. 1943.

Back home. Hydrangeas from the garden.