I remember hiking in Marin Headlands in 6th grade as part of a week-long school field trip and seeing some very impressive concrete bunkers left over from before World War II. There were also Nike missile batteries, as I recall, although I may be confusing that with Angel Island's missile batteries. Anyhoo, flat concrete slabs from a Cold War missile battery are not nearly as impressive as concrete bunkers hewn from the hillside with views out over the sea. Missile hatches do not elicit the awe that gun anchorages meant to secure 16-in naval guns into the hillside do.
Reading about a recent re-opening of "Battery Townsley" in Marin makes me want to go up there and take a look around. Maybe it will remind me of that trip in the 1980s as an 11-yr-old.
