Alameda & the Oakland Hills

 you haven't already left a comment to enter my giveaway, don't forget to!  Thank you to those of you who have.  And I agree ... Emilie Barnes is a wonderful writer!!  

On Sunday, hubby and I were planning to go to the Alameda Point Antiques Fair; however, when we got there, it was SO crowded so we decided to drive around the Oakland hills instead.  The Alameda Point Antiques Fair is held the first Sunday of every month at the former Alameda Naval Air Station (NAS Alameda) on the small island of Alameda.  The air station opened in 1936 and closed in 2006.  At that time, the City of Alameda acquired the whole base and all of it's buildings.  The intention was to renovate the buildings into housing, etc.; however, somewhere along the way the ball was dropped and most buildings are now falling down.  The TV Show MYTHBUSTERS films a lot of their experiments on the base.  My hubby remembers docking at this port when he was in the Navy in the early 80's.  Here are some pics (in order of their appearance:  the entrance to the air station, some old barracks, a cool old military house that is now rented out, and an old church).

From there, we drove up into the Oakland Hills.  Here are a few pics:

This picture is looking at the hills obviously from the street since there is a stop light in the middle of the picture.  These hills were the site of the huge Oakland Hills fire back in October of 1989, which was horrible!  As you can see, most people have rebuilt their lovely homes.  

I didn't get any close up home pictures but I love this picture of the entrance to a house.  You can imagine what the house looked like.  It's so hard to take pictures around here because there is always someone driving behind you.  If there is a spot to pull over, great.  But if not, I have to do drive by shooting (with my camera, that is!).

Then we climbed further up the hills and got these next shots.  This shot is for all you football fans!  It is a shot of the Cal Bears stadium at UC Berkeley. 

This shot is looking across the Bay to the San Francisco skyline (that the Bay Bridge).  SF is to the top right of the picture.  

This next one is looking out towards the Golden Gate Bridge, with Alcatraz in the foreground.  I just noticed that all of my pictures are getting cut off a little on the right side.  Do any of you have this problem?

And this last one is for Neabear ... it's the sign for Children's Fairyland!!