Tuesday
San Francisco truly is an enchanted city and to be here with someone special is the best.
Florida friend Bob and I will have cousin Shari's 3rd floor walkup in Noe Valley for the next few weeks. We'll explore, have great food, and do nothing to our heart's content.
A perfect way to end my year of wandering.
To wake up in a town that is not your own is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.
We are surrounded by adventure and have no idea what is in store for us
but are willing to accept whatever comes our way.
We begin by taking Muni into downtown near Union Square where we learn a ride on a cable car is now $7, probably due to the huge lawsuit years ago by the woman who claimed she had been turned into a nymphomaniac after a cable car accident.
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| library of the Marines Memorial |
Lunch in the dining room of the Marines Memorial Club
where Bob has been a member for 44 years was a special treat
and a great view of SF from near Union Square.
One of the best surprises in San Francisco, especially if you are a golfer,
is Lincoln Park Municipal Golf Course. $34.50 weekdays.
Located in the heart of the city, it was hard to keep our concentration on golf when around every corner was an awesome view of Golden Gate Bridge. Someone back in 1917 had the foresight to create this 18 hole course at the end of the Lincoln Highway which began here in 1913 and was the first coast-to-coast road across America traversing 14 states.
On an unusually warm 80 degree Sunday, Delores Park on the street below our flat was filled with people enjoying the sun, walking dogs, working on their tans, hanging out.
No time spent in the City is complete until you have exhausted yourself on a day doing stairway walks.
Entire books have been written detailing walking tours of these knee and lung challenging hillside trails.
One of our favorites was the Moraga Steps between
15th and 16th Avenues in the Sunset district.
Beautiful mosaics run up the risers of 163 steps.
The project took one year beginning in 2003.
And no, we did not walk up or down, only parked at the bottom for a photo.
But we did walk up and down many other stairways in our Noe neighborhood.
These stairs and hills are one of the reasons
San Franciscans are in very good shape.
Forced daily exercise.
Better than stairs, rental bikes.
These in Chinatown where we went for lunch at The Hong Kong Clay Pot at 960 Grant, a place that seemed to have only locals for customers.
The best places to find good cheap food.
A stroll around North Beach.
This flatiron building at Columbus and Kearny, the Sentinel Building, was built in 1907 and bought by the Kingston Trio in 1959. They sold it to Francis Ford Coppola who has it as his offices today.
Its verdigris green color of oxidized copper is
really a standout next to the ultra modern Transamerica Tower in the financial district.
and a great view of SF from near Union Square.
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| Golden Gate Bridge over my shoulder |
One of the best surprises in San Francisco, especially if you are a golfer,
is Lincoln Park Municipal Golf Course. $34.50 weekdays.
Located in the heart of the city, it was hard to keep our concentration on golf when around every corner was an awesome view of Golden Gate Bridge. Someone back in 1917 had the foresight to create this 18 hole course at the end of the Lincoln Highway which began here in 1913 and was the first coast-to-coast road across America traversing 14 states.
 | ||
| view from our flat near Delores Park in Noe Valley area of SF |
No time spent in the City is complete until you have exhausted yourself on a day doing stairway walks.
Entire books have been written detailing walking tours of these knee and lung challenging hillside trails.
One of our favorites was the Moraga Steps between
15th and 16th Avenues in the Sunset district.
Beautiful mosaics run up the risers of 163 steps.
The project took one year beginning in 2003.
And no, we did not walk up or down, only parked at the bottom for a photo.
But we did walk up and down many other stairways in our Noe neighborhood.
These stairs and hills are one of the reasons
San Franciscans are in very good shape.
Forced daily exercise.
Better than stairs, rental bikes.
These in Chinatown where we went for lunch at The Hong Kong Clay Pot at 960 Grant, a place that seemed to have only locals for customers.
The best places to find good cheap food.
A stroll around North Beach.
This flatiron building at Columbus and Kearny, the Sentinel Building, was built in 1907 and bought by the Kingston Trio in 1959. They sold it to Francis Ford Coppola who has it as his offices today.
Its verdigris green color of oxidized copper is
really a standout next to the ultra modern Transamerica Tower in the financial district.
North Beach nightlife looks seedy during the day. Carol Doda is long gone.
Rumor is she resides in a waterfront home on Sugar Loaf Key.
Very authentically unseedy are hip coffee shops
like Cafe Trieste where beat generation icons
Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg hung out in the 1950s.
Another landmark in North Beach is City Lights Bookstore,
where since 1953 when poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded it,
booklovers can come to browse and soak up the ambiance of counterculture.
The latent hippie in me had a blast checking out the banned books and other hipster stuff in the Beat Museum on Broadway.
Remember Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer? Tame by today's standards. In high school I read it under the covers with a flashlight.
The car used in the film of Jack Kerouac's life, On the Road, is also at the museum along with all sorts of memorabilia
about that very liberating era about which I knew nothing
because I was home raising kids.
If you come to the museum and you haven't met the Beatniks King,
then "you don't know JACK".
St. Peter and Paul's Church in
Washington Square Park near the end of Columbus is where Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were married on the steps, so the story goes. They couldn't be married inside because Marilyn was divorced.
This couldn't be verified easily which is why I usually don't bother to verify. The stories are more fun even if they aren't true.
Finished the day with Happy Hour at my fav restaurant, The Stinking Rose on Columbus.
If you aren't a fan of garlic you should not even walk by this place. Cross the street.
If your lover doesn't like garlic, you should find another lover.
Fisherman's Wharf for a seafood lunch at Tarantino's, an Irish restaurant in the middle of all the Italianness of the wharf.
This giant lobster weighed 4 lbs and was estimated to be about 20 years old. Figure 5 years for each pound.
The old street cars in the City are from all around the world.
This one was from Amsterdam.
Besides seeing the sights,we did a lot of this.
And this.
A flower shop on 24th St in Noe Valley.
A flower shop on 24th St in Noe Valley.
Lisa and Michael came up for
Beach Blanket Babylon at Club Fugazi.
Uber is the only way to get around town.
Only $12 from Noe Valley to downtown and the drivers are always just minutes away roaming around waiting for a call.
My pirated photo of Beach Blanket Babylon. I got hollered at by an usher but I got my no flash photo. The show was wacky wonderful as usual, spoofing the political candidates and other social issues. We laughed at its witty cheesyness. It's all about the giant hats.
At the observation tower atop the DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park
we found the best views of the City second only to the views from our flat.
Coming out of the DeYoung Museum,
Bob noticed I was wearing the Observation Tower as a
Beach Blanket Babylon hat.
Why hasn't it been in the show?!
An iconic SF scene.
for a visit with daughter Bobbie and Nacio.
A four mile walk on a fire trail in the Berkeley hills for a beautiful Bay view.
And lastly, a scene typical of Bezerkeley.
Bobbie's neighbor walking her pet pig, Truffles.
Bob just left on a plane for his home in the Florida Keys to return in the Fall.
I will miss him but will keep busy between Lisa in Willow Glen and Bobbie in Berkeley until June 1 when my renter moves out and I can be back in my own condo at the Villages.
Time for some reflections on my journey around the US.
Things I've learned :
Travel really can change you if you let it.
The trip has been very therapeutic; driving, thinking, sorting out my life.
You don't need much to be happy, as long as you have a decent book,
semi-adequate wine, and a destination.
And if you're paying attention, you will meet interesting people at least 10 times a day.
The roads we take alone offer up more secrets than those we take with others. Alone we're more likely to meet and talk to strangers along the way and we notice more.
Having my husband's ashes with me helped me not to feel alone.
He may not have been by my side, but he's very much in my heart.
But mostly I learned to face my fears. Not letting anyone talk me out of a journey I knew I had to take. Friends who were concerned about my safety seemed to be paralyzed by media hype from too many crime shows. In my 10 months on the road I had not one single incident of feeling threatened or unsafe from other people.
99% of people are good and I'm not staying home because I may run into that 1%.
If it happens I've lived a good long life and am ready to go. Attitude is everything.
With luck I have maybe 10 or 15 good years left
and don't intend to waste even one day of those years.
Life has to be lived or it is no life at all.
Thanks for traveling with me in the virtual reality of cyberspace.
A big thank you to dtr Bobbie for being my tech support and dtr Lisa for being my admin handling mail, etc. Trip wouldn't have been possible without them.
It's good to be home and I'm looking forward to catching up with all of you again.
Bobbie's neighbor walking her pet pig, Truffles.
Bob just left on a plane for his home in the Florida Keys to return in the Fall.
I will miss him but will keep busy between Lisa in Willow Glen and Bobbie in Berkeley until June 1 when my renter moves out and I can be back in my own condo at the Villages.
Time for some reflections on my journey around the US.
Things I've learned :
Travel really can change you if you let it.
The trip has been very therapeutic; driving, thinking, sorting out my life.
You don't need much to be happy, as long as you have a decent book,
semi-adequate wine, and a destination.
And if you're paying attention, you will meet interesting people at least 10 times a day.
The roads we take alone offer up more secrets than those we take with others. Alone we're more likely to meet and talk to strangers along the way and we notice more.
Having my husband's ashes with me helped me not to feel alone.
He may not have been by my side, but he's very much in my heart.
But mostly I learned to face my fears. Not letting anyone talk me out of a journey I knew I had to take. Friends who were concerned about my safety seemed to be paralyzed by media hype from too many crime shows. In my 10 months on the road I had not one single incident of feeling threatened or unsafe from other people.
99% of people are good and I'm not staying home because I may run into that 1%.
If it happens I've lived a good long life and am ready to go. Attitude is everything.
With luck I have maybe 10 or 15 good years left
and don't intend to waste even one day of those years.
Life has to be lived or it is no life at all.
Thanks for traveling with me in the virtual reality of cyberspace.
A big thank you to dtr Bobbie for being my tech support and dtr Lisa for being my admin handling mail, etc. Trip wouldn't have been possible without them.
It's good to be home and I'm looking forward to catching up with all of you again.
