Because it is an island, because there is a ferry involved, and because human beings less than five years can ride for less than a latte, Angel Island State Park is teeming with children. The only way to avoid them is to get onto the trail, but before and after that you're waiting in line with them, embarking with them, and riding a boat with them.
Harried moms snipe. Oblivious fathers wield thousand dollar cameras like mechanical dicks jousting from their torsos, stopping after each shot to judiciously examine the result as if we were at the Olympics, or in Fallujah, and not on a sun-dappled California island with a grand total of two native mammals. Most of the people who seem like they're having a good time haven't reached their teenage years yet, and even then it's a frantic sort of fun, a let-out-of-one's cage frenzy. There are two distinct camps of children being herded off the ferry by their parents: the ones for whom there will be a Safeway-sponsored picnic on the goose-excrement covered lawn, and maybe a stroll towards the eucalyptus groves if nobody screams too much, and the ones with bought-new bicycles and miniature internal frame packs that they'll outgrow within a year. These latter families will be purchasing $8 kid's entrees at the Cove Cafe.

"YAWWRPRP" says a toddler sitting across from me on the ride back, loosening my stirrup from my anvil. His father bypasses any proactive attempt to parent and instead threatens that the only real authority figure present, the captain, will throw him overboard if he doesn't be quiet.