The Gloomy Side of a Beautiful Day

Saturday was a beautiful day in San Francisco. Warm, barely a cloud in the sky. A perfect day to go shooting outside in the park. Unfortunately, I was not the only person to think so. Took a nice drive along the Great Highway, turned right into the park, and realized for the first time I may have a problem. No parking in the park, but I just chalked it up to people going to the park, maybe to the beach or the soccer fields under the nearby windmills.

On my first pass, I drove past the range, and with a quick glance to the right, I noticed that the range looked really crowded. Hard to tell how crowded while trying to not plow into another parked car, oncoming traffic, or the sidewalk, so I wrote it off to the nature of a quick glance and drove on looking for parking.

Found a parking spot on my second pass. Keeping that glance in the back of my mind, however, I decided to not pull my archery case out of the car until I knew there was room for me on the range. So I walked out onto the range, and my heart sank. There were multiple archers on every single lane, with arrows sitting in every single target. I stood out on the range for a while, hoping someone would simply disappear. Of course, that didn't happen.

So I turned around, got back in my car, and drove back along the water. Found a place to stop at Fort Funston and looked out over the ocean for a while. Even without shooting, I could still enjoy the bright, clear, warm November Saturday in San Francisco.

But I really wanted to shoot.