In the early 60’s, my wife and I had gone to San Francisco for a mini vacation. We went to a play, the De Young Museum, the Aquarium and several other attractions. One that was very interesting was the Civil War Fort Point which was at the level of the Bay under the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge.
On our way home, we decided to cross the bridge and head north that way instead of going back on I-80. We noticed an army base on the west side of the highway and decided to go down to see what it looked like. There was a turn off on the road to Sausalito which we took. It lead to a one way tunnel under the highway. When we came out on the other side, we were at Fort Cronkite which I found out later, was a World War II fort.
It was a Sunday afternoon and the large parade ground was being used by soldiers playing football, visiting with their families and others just soaking up the sunshine. I had taken a few pictures of the bridge above us. I wanted to try and get up higher to take a telephoto lens picture of the bridge with it in the foreground and the city behind it.
I noticed a road leading past the parade grounds up a hill. It was in reasonably good shape with a few pot holes, but we decided to try it out. I kept checking back to find the perfect framing for my picture.
The top of the hill was getting closer and then, all of a sudden, I saw this soldier armed with a rifle coming toward me. Just over the hill in behind him, there was a Nike missile raising up. I had almost driven onto the missile site. The soldier with a puzzled look on his face asked me what I was doing there and I told him about my picture taking effort. He helped me get my car turned around on the one lane road and headed back down the hill. It is a good thing that Homeland Security was not in affect at that time!
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