The kitties have grown much in the last 6 weeks or so! They are still very cute. (I hope to write about the rest of the Maine vacation over the next couple of days , but it had been quite awhile since the last Quarto and Folio update.)

Candlepin bowling is always a must when we come to Maine, so Mer and I decided to do that yesterday, and then go see Wall-e, which Mer had seen but I had not. Imagine my shock and dismay to find out that the bowling alley in Augusta is closed Tuesday-Thursday during the summer! Who knew? Note to people traveling here soon (and you know who you are!) – there is unlimited bowling on Mondays and Fridays from noon-three for $8.00! Still, we did not get to bowl yesterday.

That left us in Augusta with two hours until the movie started. So, we decided to explore around. I drove us along the river to downtown Augusta, and then we were forced to turn one way or the other, so I went down toward (and across) the river. We were coming up on one of Augusta’s two rotaries (roundabouts for some of you), so on impulse I turned down a road that I had never been on. It ran right along the river’s edge, and was not looking too interesting. I was just about to turn around when I saw a small gate with the sign “Augusta Arsenal – historic landmark”, and decided to investigate.

I’m glad I did. The Arsenal is a bunch of old stone buildings in the middle of a walking park, right on the river. The buildings are sitting empty, which made me a little mad. How could cool old buildings that look right out on the river and across to the Capitol Building sit empty – and for years, from the look of things? If I had a lick of entrepreneurial spirit and any capital, I’d open a B and B or a restaurant there – what a great location!

We drove around the complex area, and a few of the buildings do seem to be used for state of Maine government stuff. One end of the Arsenal complex appears to be a hospital, with a bunch of new buildings. We left the park area near the hospital, and went our way to the shopping area where the theater is.

We were still about an hour early, but that was easily remedied – there was a Barnes and Noble next door to the theater. I got a cookie and hot chocolate, and then set off to find a biography on George Burns and Gracie Allen. It turns out that the biographies on them appear to be all out of print. That is frustrating. In my humble opinion, when a book goes out of print, the publisher should make it available for download as long as it is for personal use, but I’m clearly dreaming on that front.

We did see Wall-e, but had to sit through about 5 tedious and awful-looking movie previews. I recommend Wall-e – it is a touching movie, and clever (it is Pixar, after all). It is fascinating to see how much body language Pixar was able to give the robots, who (mostly) don’t speak. If you do see it, keep an eye out for a satellite that hits Wall-e in the face – I’m pretty sure it was Sputnik (probably a Pixar tribute).

Wall-e is a sweet movie, and got me choked up in a couple of places. Not that I can relate to a devoted, single-minded, nigh-obsessed robot or anything.

Fun facts – the full-power noise that Wall-e makes is a boot tone from an old Macintosh, and the voice of the auto pilot is not a real voice – it was Macintalk, the voice simulator that has been on Macs for a long time.

So, in the summer of endless travel, Mer and I are now kicking it in San Fran’s sister city (cosmopolitan-wise), East Livermore, Maine.

We took our normal two-day trek to get here, stopping in Albany the first night, so we had a relatively short drive of about six hours on Monday to get to Dad’s. Fun times in Albany: we stayed near the airport. I did not realize how close to the airport we were until the next morning when a plane flew right over my head as I was loading up the car. It was a real jet (not a small one), and it was probably only a few hundred feet off the ground. Nifty. We also ate at the Wolf Road Diner near the hotel, just to continue our SF diner experiences (except we got away with a bill of under $20).

I like Maine very much – it is pretty, and it is home. I also sleep like a rock here. I don’t know if it is the darkness (no city lights), the quiet, or the fresh air, but I sleep really well. I managed to get up around 9:30 this morning, and I feel much better for the rest.

What made me feel less better was my first run since getting back from the Dominican Republic (about three weeks ago). The area around Dad’s is  not very runner-friendly; your only option is to run on the road. Adding to the fun is that Maine has many hills, and the ones around Dad’s are pretty noteworthy. I ran for a total of about 24 minutes, but I had to walk some, and I did not feel all that great. Still, it is a (re)start.

When I got back from running, Dad was outside installing anti-deer whistles on his car (to try to scare deer off from the car so as to avoid collisions with large mammals). So, I started chatting with Dad while I stretched. Before too long, a neighbor pulled into the driveway, got out of his car, and started chatting.

This is one of the greatest things about Maine, and I cannot seem to get Ohio folk to process it. People drop by in Maine. You swing by; you drop in. You don’t need to “get on the calendar” or call days or weeks in advance. There is no expectation of a big meal, or a perfectly clean house (although Dad’s house is always spotless). People just want to visit. It is how things should be – good friends should be comfortable enough to swing by when they feel like it – if the person is not home or too busy, then you just keep going. It is simple. Yet, no matter how I try to explain this to my Ohio friends, I can not remember anyone in seven years ever taking me up on my open-door policy (with the notable exception of my former neighbor Sara, who understands this policy perfectly well). To me, dropping by is the ultimate expression of natural hospitality – it says that you are always welcome, and that you are important enough to stop most things to visit with you. We get way too busy in Ohio, and work and chores become more important than our relationships with our friends and neighbors. Phah, say I! Drop by my house, darn it! You are welcome.

I’ll put the soapbox away now – I have some visiting to do.

A few final thoughts on San Francisco:

We left Wednesday, and had an easy and comfortable $5.00 BART ride to the airport. The BART train from the airport had been like Chicago El trains – plastic seats and standing room; what I expected. The BART train back was like a commuter train – plush seats, lots of room – very nice! It took about 30 minutes to get from our hotel BART station to the airport. Thumbs up for BART!

San Francisco is beautiful and unique. Mer kept commenting on how she had never seen anywhere like it, and she has traveled quite a lot. The buildings (on the vast whole) are well kept and pretty, and the streets are clean (they have street cleaning three times/week in some places!). The natural beauty of the bay and the many hills make for a fantastically interesting city.

San Fran is a nice city to walk in – the city is small, and most places are within a three-mile walk. There are always quiet side streets to walk down, and the people are very friendly.

San Fran has steep hills. Lots of steep hills. I’m really not kidding! I have never seen cars parked on a 45-degree incline before. The hills really take your breath away!

San Fran is an expensive place. Eating out, even for two teetotalers, routinely ran $30 or more, and we never ate for less than $20, even at cafes and diners. Our hotel had a great location, but you pay for that.  Our hotel was listed as “inexpensive” in our tour book, but was $170/night (including tax).

While there is much to do and see in SF, I feel as if you can hit the major sights in a 7-10 day vacation. We were in SF for 3 days, and we could have seen the last three major sights (Golden Gate Park, Alcatraz, and the market) if we had been there for 3 more days. Note – Alcatraz is booked up several days in advance; if you want to tour the island, call ahead and make reservations before you go. While you can make SF a meaningful vacation for 7 days, I think you could easily do 12-14 days if you wanted to have a car for part of that time – the coastal scenery and state park system near SF are breathtaking, and wine country is close at hand as well.

San Fran is only about 750,000 people, which helps it feel manageable, but it is still a very cosmopolitan city. It has the world-famous SF Chinatown, plus a very good Little Italy, and everywhere you go you hear people speaking in foreign languages. The French and Germans seem especially fond of San Fran.

The weather is perfect for touring (my sunburn aside). With a light jacket in hand, you can walk all day and never be uncomfortable. The temperatures at night were always in the 50s, which makes for sound sleeping, and I’m not sure we hit 70 during the day. If we did, it was just into the 70s – it was perfect for wandering around (probably a bit cool for swimming in the frigid bay, but that was all right by me).

All-in-all, I give San Francisco two big thumbs up. We both had a great time, and felt as if we crammed a lot into 3 days in the city. We are even thinking of going back next summer to visit our friends and to see the things we missed. I highly recommend a trip out that way if you get a chance.

Tuesday – Day 5

Tuesday we decided to take things a little easier. We had breakfast and got going around 9:30 with the goal of walking the 3 miles to the Palace of Fine Arts, which now houses the Exploratorium, San Francisco’s excellent hands-on science museum.

We wandered a different series of streets on the way to the Palace of Fine Arts, which included a brief but worthwhile detour to check out Grace Cathedral, an Episcopalian church. It is huge, and it has copies of the brass doors of the Baptistery in Florence on the front door. Inside, the church has beautiful modern stained glass windows, and under the windows, all around the church, are murals of San Francisco’s history. They were very well done – the church was a nice mixture of traditional church architecture with modern touches.  We spent a too-brief 15 minutes looking around.

We managed to get to the Exploratorium after about an hour or so, about 30 minutes after it opened. The Palace of Fine Arts is a recreation of the original meant-to-be-temporary Colombian Exposition building that housed the, well, arts, back around 1910 or so. The rest of the Exposition was torn down, bu the people liked the Palace well enough to save it, and then to rebuild it from more sturdy material. Today, it houses a small(ish) science museum built around the idea that all of the displays should be interactive. It is quite remarkable.

The Exploratorium is small enough that you can see most (but not all) of it in one day. We had a great time mucking about with various displays. The main focus of the museum (at least right now) seems to be with the human senses, especially hearing and sight. They threw in a large section on the mind as well. These exhibits were fun in that many of them liked to mess with your senses. The mind section dealt with superstitions and learned behaviors (like why should it be gross to drink from a toilet-shaped drinking fountain?).  It linked closely to the light and sight section where the displays kept throwing you curves in perspective. There was a room that had strange proportions, but looked to be symmetrical because the mind wants to see it that way. There were displays on how the mind fixes on general things – there was a huge picture where something in the picture changed every 3 seconds or so, but I rarely saw what it was. This included the replacing of an entire tree with another tree, right in front of me, but I did not notice it. Very effective, and very strange. There were lights you could shine into your eyes to let you see the blood vessels in the back of the eye (that your brain usually ignores) and one that lets you see the blood cells whizzing about in your eye (something else your brain ignores). There were exhibits on the eyes’ blind spots (you cannot see where the optic nerve leaves the eye, but normally the brain fills this section in for you), there were displays dealing with optical illusions and others dealing with how we see color. The sight section was where we spent most of our time.

We spent most of our last hour in the hearing section of the museum. In this area, you got to mess with different musical instruments, try to guess environments just based on sound, try to determine where sounds were coming from, hear how different object resonate at different frequencies, play name-that-tune when the tune was being played several octaves apart (harder than you might think), and so on.

When we entered the museum, one of the first displays I saw was a cloud chamber. Cloud chambers were used in early particle physics to show paths of small particles, like electrons. When a cosmic ray hits an atom, it scatters particles around. The particles can cause a gas (like gaseous alcohol) to condense around the particles. These trails are small, but still big enough to be seen with the naked eye. It was really really cool! There were a TON of cosmic rays in this two-foot-by-three-foot cloud chamber. Neat-o.

The only downside to the museum (no surprise here) was that the food was expensive. We split a small pizza, and it still cost $7. It went to an excellent museum, though, so no hard feelings. I really liked the Exploratorium – highly recommended.

We left the Palace of Fine Arts around closing time (5:00), and headed off in search of a (steady, now!) bus so that we would not have to walk the several miles to the Golden Gate Park, which we wanted to visit, even if only briefly. We did manage to find the correct bus, so after $3 and 30 minutes, we got off at the edge of the park.

It turns out that Golden Gate Park is huge. Really huge. We walked around in it for a little over an hour (so about 3 – 3.5 miles), and we just managed one little corner in the northeast section of the park. I even had to pass up going up a large hill in the middle of a small lake because of time concerns, and we still only saw a little of the park! We got there too late to see any of the attractions (the art museum, the tea garden), but the park is still very pretty. And did I mention large?

Once we wandered out of the park discouragingly close to where we had entered, we decided to take a bus back to our hotel, and go on from there to supper (it being almost 7:00). The bus route we were near was not the one Mer had originally wanted to take, but I did not want to walk another mile to get the “right” bus, so we took this one (a Number 5). This bus was going close to an area our tour book had mentioned as sketchy, but it was still daylight, and so we decided to try it.

The bus ride was fine. We even made it just within the 90-minute “transfer” time from our first bus trip and so did not have to pay for another fare. The people on the bus were very respectable looking, and the areas we were driving though felt safe enough. I did notice more iron bars on the windows, there was some street trash around, and some of the buildings needed some paint – that was the extent of the “bad” that I saw via the bus.

The bus let us out a few blocks from the cable car terminus, which was five blocks from our hotel. Cities are strange things. We were let out on Market Street. It should be a beautiful street – it is wide, with wide (ten+-foot) sidewalks of brick, with lots of trees. For four blocks or so on Market, there were closed businesses, businesses with lots of bars over the windows, and a few strip clubs. Then, we crossed one street, and we were in shopping central, one block from the cable car terminus and three blocks from Union Square. It has always amazed me how quickly neighborhoods can change – very often in just one block. Weird.

After a short regrouping (map checking) at the hotel, we struck off through Chinatown to head to North Beach (Little Italy). We wanted to check out a restaurant our book recommended. It was a bit of a walk away (about 30-40 minutes), but it was a nice evening. We found the restaurant without too much trouble. But we found it closed and locked up. We had left the tour book at the hotel, so we swung into a nearby store (a liquor store) to ask directions to our backup restaurant. The men in the store were helpful and steered us to the restaurant, a few blocks away.

It was a small, family-run place. Even at 8:00 on a Tuesday, there was a 30-minute wait. So, we waited at the bar and enjoyed the female bartender bantering with a couple of her customers. When we did get our table, it was happily right in the window where we could watch the street. We were pretty beat at this point, so our dinner (mine was good, Mer’s was excellent) was largely quiet.

Meredith had a baked-goods craving (that I was happy to share), so after dinner, we struck off on the 25-minute walk to Union Square to go to the Cheesecake Factory that we had seen signs for. We got a little turned around, but found our way without any detours. We were looking forward to dessert, only to be confronted with closed doors. It turns out that the Cheesecake Factory is inside the Macy’s store, which was closed. Morale was low. We checked out a Border’s cafe, but that did not seem too exciting; however, spirits rallied when we found an open Walgreen’s that had Ghirardelli’s chocolate on sale. We snatched up three bars and went back to the hotel, where we munched on two and saved the other for the airport on Wednesday.

All in all, another fantastic day in SF. I think we managed about another 7 miles on our “easy” day. 🙂

Day
4 Monday

 

My
brother Shannon would be proud of us. Shannon is known for being a fan of
walking. And walking. And walking. Meredith decided today that we should go see
the Golden Gate Bridge and walk out on it. There are bus lines that run out to
the bridge, but then you have to figure out the transit system (one bus to the
bridge, $1.50 each way – too complicated!). So, with Meredith’s good humor, I
decided we should walk out to the bridge. And back. All in all, by estimating
based on time, maps, and a little mapmyrun.com, it looks as if we marched
around SF to the tune of 13-15 miles in one day. Boy, did we see a lot of SF!

 

We
got going on our constitutional by leaving the hotel around 10:30. Mer wanted
to go up in Coit Tower, which was okay by me, so we struck out in that
direction. To make things more interesting, Mer wanted to go back through a
different part of Chinatown during the day. We went through one of the main
decorative arches, and so we were in tourist-land for a few blocks before we
detoured over into smaller streets, which included a stop in a very cool kite
store (and I imagine that windy SF is a great kite city!). We then went over to
the main shopping street, where the local Chinese do their shopping. It was
wild! It was really crowded, and there were wares for sale everywhere, even
spilling out onto the sidewalk. Mer spent a year in Hong Kong when she was 8,
and the smells kept bringing her back to there. It was very authentic! There
were whole cooked chickens and ducks for sale (heads, necks, and legs
included), there were fruits everywhere, and 
there were many foods that I could not even identify. And people. Lots
and lots and lots of people speaking in Chinese. How cool.

 

One
of the reasons I love travel is that you almost always run into something
wacky. My wacky Chinatown moment is this: there was a tank truck pulled up next
to the sidewalk. A man was on top with a net on a pole, and he was dipping the
net into the tank on the truck. He would then scoop out a bunch of very alive
fish and dump them into a 50-gallon trash barrel that was on wheels. We passed
by, but then were overtaken by the man with the trash can full of fish. As he passed
by, a fish jumped out of the barrel and onto the sidewalk. The man stopped and
scooped it back into the barrel. And all the while, this Chinese fisherman was
whistling “Dust in the Wind.” What a strange and fantastic moment.

 

I
eventually asked to get off the crowded main street, so we turned off to a side
street. As we were leaving Chinatown (and entering Little Italy), there was an
espresso shop with gelato (Italian ice cream) for sale in the window. The
flavors of the Italian ice cream in the Italian cafe were listed in Chinese and
English. I really do love travel.

 

We
climbed up Telegraph Hill a different (and perhaps an even steeper) way, and it
was a tremendous view again. We went into the tower store to get our tickets to
go to the top, and did not realize the entrance to the elevator was through the
store (sadly, the stairs were closed). Our confusion about the elevator turned
out to be a good thing, because it caused us to wander around inside the base
of the tower, which is decorated by WPA-funded murals (from the 30s). They were
all scenes of people, mostly workers and mostly in SF. Some unusual ones: a car
accident with police on the scene and two hurt/dead people (in the 30s!), a man
blow-torching the outside of a dead pig (presumably to get the hair off?), stock
workers at the Chicago Board of Trade with all the graphs of stocks plummeting
down, and my favorite – a library where a man was pulling down a copy of Marx’s
Das
Capital (sic). I bet the WPA
loved that!

 

Once
we went around the circumference of the base of the tower, we figured out that
we had missed the elevator, and corrected our mistake. Even the elevator ride
was great – it had two floors, top and bottom – and it was still operated by an
attendant who ran the elevator manually (including the scissor-cage doors).
Because you could see through the doors, you could see the wall of the tower
going by as you went up. Neat.

 

Not
surprisingly, the views from the top of the tower were wonderful. The tower is
easily above the treeline of the hill, and so you have unobstructed views of
the bay and the city. We could make out all the major landmarks. And, I was
happy because the windows were plexi-glassed in, so I felt safe (I have a
well-developed fear of heights that defies all rational thought, on the rare
occasions I have rational thoughts). My fear of heights was just getting warmed
up, but I get ahead of myself.

 

Meredith
wanted to see Lombard Street, which is famous for having a ton of switchbacks
(happily decorated with flowers), so we struck off in that direction. We found
the street without too much trouble, and before heading up (there are a lot of
“ups” in SF), we stopped at a nice cafe for lunch. In retrospect,
this was a fantastic idea, since it would be about 8 hours and 10 miles before
we ate again.

 

Newly
fortified, we went up the stairs (SF has a lot of stairs) that pass as the
sidewalk on Lombard Street. The stairs border the actual winding part of the
street, which is off-limits to pedestrians, since there is very little room for
the cars to make it through. The houses here were beautiful, especially the
ones facing the bay, and I suspect they all go for millions of dollars.

 

The
buildings in SF are almost all beautiful. Each building has its own look – no
housing development stamps are allowed here. All of the buildings I have seen
are well kept, and in the course of walking 15 miles, we saw many many
buildings. They tend to be colorful, and most are 3-4 stories, which is
pleasing to the eye (not too tall). The owners do wonderful things with what
little land they have – most buildings have trees, flowers, and/or well-kept
shrubbery. I have rarely seen trash anywhere in the city – the one time I
remember seeing it, I noticed it because a woman was  in the street picking it up to throw it away.
It looks as if the people of SF take great pride in their city, and they should
– it is just a fantastic place.

 

In
addition to getting to see many neighborhoods, one great advantage to taking
your time and walking is that you can explore. Near the top of one of the hills
near Hyde Pier I saw some steps. Steps! Going up! So, we had to take them. They
led to a small and quiet park, where the benches had direct views of the bay
and the Golden Gate Bridge. Not too shabby! We rested here for several minutes.

 

We
continued to walk through nice neighborhoods, managing to avoid the few major
roads that SF has. The nice thing about walking is that you can always walk up to
the next block to avoid traffic and get a quieter street. Along the way I took
many photos of homes and the flowers around them (digital cameras are nice!).
We eventually got to the old military outpost called the Presidio.

 

We
had heard about the Presidio on our boat tour on Sunday. It was founded in 1776
by the Spanish (which does not prevent the gate from having a “1776”
emblem emblazoned in red, white, and blue across the entrance), and then was
captured by Mexico, and then we got it. Sometime recently (2002? 1994?) the
government gave it to the park services, and they have been turning it into
housing using the existing buildings. I had figured it would be efficient – not
bleak, but not pretty. It turns out that if I were to live in SF, I would live
in the Presidio (if I could afford it). It looks and feels like a college
campus, and it is huge. There are enormous green spaces everywhere, and the buildings are attractive – brick or wooden siding, and spaced out well. There
are lots of places to park (if you were to have a car), and almost everywhere
has a view of something (SF, the bridge, the bay). All of this just a few miles
from downtown SF! Why anyone would live anywhere else is beyond me.

 

So,
we had an enjoyable (if not brief) walk through one part of the Presidio. We
waked under one of the approach bridges for the GG Bridge, and found ourselves
in a wide space that ended in a beach and a few park buildings. We decided to
check them out (partly driven on by the promise of a bathroom). The beach
itself is fairly narrow, but the green space around the area was very large.
The buildings hosted some small maritime museum, but it was closed, so we
wandered to a nearby pier that had an up-close view of the underside of the
bridge, as well as a “warming hut” that had a small cafe with
adjoining bathrooms.

 

We
wandered out on the pier for some nice views of the city as well as the bridge.
The wind was whipping pretty well here – it had been picking up as the day got
later and as we got close to the mouth of the bay. The bay is considered one of
the great places to windsurf and to kite-surf, and it is not hard to see why –
you can count on there being plenty of wind. The major drawback is the water temperature.
As I found out for my mandatory look-ma-I-have-my-feet-in-the-water picture,
the bay is cold. According to our boat tour, the bay tends to be in the 50s.
After the slight detour of the pier, we decided it was time to head up a path
and tackle the bridge itself.

 

Let’s
face facts:  the bridge is tall. Really
tall. Really really scare-the-pants-off-Matt tall. Maybe one of my subconscious
reasons for walking the 5 miles to the bridge was to put off having to go on
it. Mer really wanted to go out on the bridge, so I wanted to support her, so I
tried going out on the bridge. There was a standard guardrail, about chest
high. This made me nervous. Then, happily, the guardrail went over our heads.
That made me feel better and I began to think I could go out on the bridge.
Then the extra fencing stopped – it was there only to protect the old fort
under the bridge. It was back to the not-high-enough standard rail. I kept my
eyes down on the sidewalk and walked on, near the left side of the sidewalk. I
was promptly yelled at by a cyclist (who called me “dumb ass”)
because I was on his side. I did deserve it in that I was on his side of the
sidewalk, but I could not get closer to that drop. The bridge climbs to a
height of almost 800 feet above the bay. I made it as far as the first pylon.
Mer told me to look up at it and she went around to the other side of the
pylon. I later found out that she commented to me something to the effect of,
“See? Isn’t this cool?” except I was already on my way back to the
shore. On the way back, the wind was whipping, and I could not help but see
that the sidewalk had small drain holes in it that revealed that the sidewalk
was only 2 inches thick. Mentally I know that is enough. Emotionally, I was a
wreck. Mer figured out that I was gone, and came and joined me on the shore
after a few minutes.

 

After
I calmed down, we went back down the walking trail to check out Fort Point, an
old army fort that the bridge was built over. It is about four stories tall,
and it was fun to walk about on the inside. We just missed the film showing the
construction of the bridge, which was too bad, but we got there just 30 minutes
before they closed, so we were still able to climb to the top. It was strange
up there – on the land side of the fort the wind was blowing pretty well. Then
we wandered over to the bay side. I have never been in wind like that. It was
just amazing. My guess is the arch and supports of the bridge act like a wind
tunnel, but regardless, that was the strongest wind I have ever been in.

 

We
decided to go a different route on the way back. There appeared to be a wide
walking/jogging path that followed the bay, so we took that. It turns out that
the path runs back into the edge of the city proper, but not so far as the
piers. That was okay – we took it easy on the path and watched a few
windsurfers and a few kite-surfers. We even stopped to talk to a man who had
just finished kite-surfing, but, while polite, he was busy trying to pack his
gear up, so we did not bother him for too long. Once the walking path ended, we
trekked along a city street, looking at more impressive houses along the way.

 

We
found our way to a hamburger joint near Telegraph Hill where we had excellent
BBQ burgers and a huge mound of chili cheese fries (the chili was a little
bitter, but good).

 

We
got back to the hotel, where I had to stay close to a bathroom as the result of
dehydration. It took about an hour for me to feel better, but we were able to
go to the diner again for dessert, which was okay.

 

It
was a very very busy day! We also managed to prove that you can get sunburned
on a cloudy day if you are outside for 10 hours.

I’ll leave you with a picture of our first SF kitty, and two church signs that caught my attention.

Day 3 Sunday

San Francisco continues to impress. What a great city! It is very nice to walk around (and we walked a LOT of it today), and the people are super-freindly. We were looking at our guidebook or map on two different occasions today and random people stopped to ask if we needed help – nice going, SF!

Meredith was in charge of the day, and wanted to surprise me, so I had no idea of what we were going to do. We ate a nice breakfast (French toast) at our hotel, and headed out around 10:00. We started by going to church (it was Sunday, after all). Meredith took me the several-block walk to Glide Church, which is well known as an activist church concerned with social justice and the poor.

Glide was a thought-provoking, interesting, and complex experience for me. The church is way out there in helping and loving people – a homeless man told us they had 65 programs in SF, including owning two large buildings for low-income housing. The church was open and friendly and had created a wonderful community where people were accepted and loved. The music kicked butt with a great choir and band.  The service was called a celebration service, and it was a celebration. The hard part for me was the theology, or almost total lack of it. God was rarely mentioned, and when he was, it was in a very general sense. The service opened with the proclamation that “God is here! The Lord is here! Allah is here! Krishna is here!” There were times where a leader said, “God be praised! Goddess be praised!”  A man who is going through tough times with his relationship, his health, his home, and his job got up to give a testimony where the only mention of God was to thank God for Glide Church – he spent most of his time giving praise to Glide Church and his therapist rather than to God. I am NOT mocking the man’s pain at all – there was just little evidence of relying on God in his troubles. The sermon had three parts, which did not seem too related, did not mention God, and only mentioned Jesus once to say that Jesus never rejected anyone (which is not true – Jesus at least rejected some of the religious leaders of his day). The minister even went so far as to say that he did not know if God heard prayers or not, but that he was going to continue on.

So, here is a church that is doing the real work of the church, but seems to have little idea of who they are doing it for. They are putting many or most evangelical churches to shame in their ministries. It should be a wake-up call to more conservative Christians elsewhere – we need to be doing more for social justice. It seems to me that Glide shows love without much truth of the Gospel, but that most conservative churches show the truth with few practical displays of love. We need to work on that. James points out that works without faith are pointless, but also warned that faith without works is dead. Meredith pointed it out well with the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. Jesus told her, “I do not condemn you. Now go, and sin no more.” Glide is great at the not condemning, but misses the sin-no-more part. Many evangelical churches are great at the sin no-more-part, but miss the not-condemning part. It needs to be both: works and faith. I want a church with conservative theology and liberal social outreach. Going to Glide was very much a worthwhile experience. (As an aside, we were there for the 102nd birthday of Mother Ruth Jones, an activist who was active in the Black Panthers and other social justice causes).

After church, Mer and I walked down to the terminus of the cable car line. As efficient public transportation, cable cars are lousy. As fun things to do, they are great! A one-way ticket costs $5.00, and we waited in line for about 20 minutes (on busy days it can reach 2 hours). We made sure we got on the “pretty” line instead of the faster, more direct line. Mer wanted to stand on a sideboard, so we did that. That is a bit of an adventure. We were on the right side, which passes very close to parked cars or moving cars passing the cable car. You are warned from time to time to watch for mirrors. The people on the left side of the car had to watch it when they passes very close to cable cars coming the other way. People can use the cable cars for transportation, but our car was very full, and we bypassed several stops that had waiting passengers because we had no room. The views from the cable car ranged from interesting to breath taking. It was also much fun to watch the operator run the car. Cable cars work by grabbing a cable under the car (and pavement). The cable is always moving, and provides the locomotion for the car. The cable car has no motor of any kind. This means the operator really needs to put his back into pulling the lever that grabs the cable, especially when you start from a stop going up hill. The cable car ride was about 20 minutes, and it was a great time – highly recommended.

We got off the cable car at the end of the line, which is the piers on the bay (the far northeastern side of the city). We wandered down Hyde Street Pier, where we had a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and ran into two of Julie’s friends, Kerry and Chris. They had swung into SF just so Chris could see the city for the first time, and had stopped at the pier to get a few pictures. They were on the pier for about 15 minutes total, and that was when we showed up. I love things like that!

Meredith wanted to see if we could get a tour of Alcatraz, so we walked a fair ways to Pier 33 (after fortifying ourselves with a Ben and Jerry’s stop), where the tours leave from. The next available tour was for Friday, so we got tickets for the 5:30 bay cruse that would take us around the bay, including by the island. We had two hours until we had to be back, so we wandered the neighborhood streets to downtown to the Transamerican Building (the famous pyramid one). It took about 30 minutes to get there. We then wandered back up through North Beach (SF’s Little Italy, which is right next to Chinatown), where Mer pointed out interesting houses and places: a few buildings that survived the 1906 earthquake, a few houses or offices where famous authors lived or wrote, a few bars or clubs where bands or comedians got their start. That was interesting, but mostly I enjoyed wandering the pretty neighborhoods of the city. After the walking tour, we still had about an hour to get back to the pier, so I was able to indulge my curiosity. I saw a sign for Coit Tower, which turns out to be on Telegraph Hill, one of the taller hills in SF. A tower! Up a hill! Up a steep hill! Of course we had to go!

That was a pretty climb up to the tower, If you ever come to SF, it is worth going to, but walk – do not drive. Parking is very limited, and there was a line of cars waiting for spaces. Besides, the walking route is more direct and pretty. We did not go up the tower – there was a line, and we were on a schedule, so we decided we should go back on Monday to go up the tower itself. Our map showed a road going away from the tower, so we went looking for it. It turned out to be stairs instead of a road – almost 400 stairs that wound down the hill through gardens and really cool houses. What a great walk! It came out about three blocks from Pier 33, so we were back in plenty of time for the bay cruise.

The cruise was great – we had a sunny and fairly clear day, so we could see across the entire bay. The ship was fairly full, but we got standing room next to the upper-deck railing, so we could see well and take some good photos of the city and the Golden Gate Bridge. Word of warning – always bring a jacket where ever you go in SF – even on a sunny day, the bay was really windy and cool – I had a jacket and was still shivering toward the end of the 90-minute tour.

The highlight of the cruise for me was the bridge, We went all the way out to it, and went under it. It is just immense. What a fantastic structure! It was really cool to get to see it from underneath. Nifty.

The cruise did circle Alcatraz three times while telling the history of the fort and prison. It was interesting and I enjoyed it. It was mostly viewable from the other side of the ship, and I did not want to wrangle to get a better view, so I contented myself with limited views of the island, but with great views of San Francisco.

After we got back to the pier, it was about 7:30, so we decided to walk to Chinatown (about 25 minutes) for supper. There was about a 30-minute wait at the restaurant we chose, but that was okay. We had a good rest in chairs while waiting for a table, and we could see the place was a good mixture of tourists and locals. We finally got to our table, and we both ordered a house specialty – beef in a special sauce. It was good – not blow-me-away, but very nice throughout. We did decide to get dessert elsewhere (we are not overly fond of Chinese desserts). We ended up walking back to Nob Hill to our hotel, and went to a diner our tour book recommended (Sears Diner). It may have been a diner once, but it was pretty swanky now. We got a seat right next to a big bay window where we could see cable cars and we could people-watch. We got mousse cakes and I got a (very average) hot chocolate, and we enjoyed watching SF go by outside the window.

We got back to the hotel about 10:00, where I promptly fell asleep in my clothes with my glasses still on. It had been a full day!

We did take a little trip out last night after I blogged. We went to a diner about two blocks away. SF seems to have many diners, and I love diners. It was a 24-hour diner, and I got the must-haves of diner food (other than breakfast) – fries and a shake (oreo last night). Mer got an egg, and we enjoyed the atmosphere very much. There were at least three non-English nationalities on staff at the diner. I commented to Mer this morning that Cuyahoga Falls is very vanilla. I find the mutli-cultural experience of cities to be very exciting.

After eating, Mer wanted to stroll the two blocks down to Union Square, which we did. It was about 10:00, and the square had a bunch of teens in it, and they seemed to be playing 1-2-3-stop, except I did not recognize the language. What a great use of a public space. It was a pretty evening, and although I’m not enamored of big corporations, it was impressive to see the flashy stores of Macy’s and others that faced the square. It was pretty, and it was exciting to be somewhere new.

Mer figured out on this trip that this is the first trip we have taken in nine (!) years where we were not traveling with family, to see family, or for a school-related (missions)  trip. Don’t get me wrong – I love seeing family, and traveling with family has been rewarding, but it take me aback that we had not traveled as “us” for so long. No wonder this trip feels exciting!  

I love weddings! I love the celebration and pageantry and I’m a sucker for them. Julie and Jeff’s wedding was worth coming out for (and the tour of SF is still to come as a bonus!).

The wedding was only a few minutes’ drive from the hotel, so we were there in plenty of time. It was at a restaurant/club house/senior center/activity palace for a retirement community, and it was beautiful. It was an outdoor ceremony; apparently Sacramento’s weather is reliable, and it was a wonderful summer day – sunny and warm (in the 80s). The reception was in a ballroom in the clubhouse.

Jeff looked very nice in his tux, and Julie was beautiful in her dress. I have never seen a bride that looked anything but gorgeous – they just beam and smile. Wonderful.

There were a few Julie moments during the ceremony, and I would have been sad if there had not been. During her vows, the minister said, “Jeff,…” which sounded as if he was now addressing Jeff. It turns out that it was still part of Julie’s vow, and when she realized it, she burst out with a laugh and apologized to the guests – not necessary, but funny. Mer and I had a similar issue during our vows (almost ten years ago!) – it is easy to think the minister has switched to the other person.

When Jeff’s time came to place the ring on Julie’s finger and say his vows, he was intent on repeating the vows and was looking at the minister. Julie quietly but audibly indicated that Jeff should “look at me.” Another grand moment.

I think that is why I love weddings so much – they always have moments that show the personality of the people involved, which is great since I usually know at least one of the people involved if I am at the wedding.

The reception was a very nice meal (potatoes, chicken, beef, and tortellini), and Mer and I got to sit with some of Julie’s college friends and current colleagues. It was nice to finally meet some of the people Julie mentions.

Julie and Jeff ate, cut the cake (yum!), and then danced together. They are a great-looking couple. Then Julie and her dad danced, and Jeff danced dances with his step-mom and mother. Then Julie kicked things off with “Footloose” and the music stayed peppy for some time. Mer and I did manage to dance two slow dances together, and had much fun watching Julie lead a train around the floor.

We left just before things were to wind down (we left about 2:30). We drove back to San Francisco with only one wrong turn (my fault), and we returned the car to the airport. On the way we got to drive over the Bay Bridge, which is huge, so we’ve now been over two of the major bridges in the area. Once we took care of the car, we jumped on BART, the SF area transit.

BART is okay. It is clean, and very fast. The stations are spaced a ways apart, so you feel like you make good progress. It is both a subway (at times) and an elevated train (at times) – the area really is hilly! The downside to the BART is they charge based on distance – I prefer the Chicago style of one-size-fits-all for fares, but the pay-for-distance makes sense. It cost us about $5.50 to go from the airport to downtown.

Once downtown, we made our way to the street, where I noticed that my secure-in-his-manhood Jordache backpack that I borrowed from Mom ten years ago had split a seam. That is sad – it has been all over the world with me.

Our walk to the hotel was only five blocks, but I was glad to get there. The sidewalks seem fairly crowded when you are hauling luggage. The last block was on a hill that is probably 35-40 degrees. Yikes!

Our hotel feels very European. It is very narrow, and several floors high. It is run by a French couple, so the decor is French.

We saw cable cars, but did not ride one yet. I am suspicious of them – they seem crowded and slow (they get stuck in traffic and have a speed of 9 mph when moving). I’m not sure how you pay on them – maybe it is the honor system, because people sure seem to jump on and off all over.

I thought we were going to have a great theater experience tonight – there was a one-man “romp” through all of Shakespeare’s work playing at a theater only a few blocks away. We got to the theater with time to spare only to discover that I’d misread the dates and that it starts next weekend. Sigh. Still, we got to see some street performers, and got to see all kinds of people that you don’t run into in Cuyahoga Falls (race, language, dress, and so on).

I might pop out to one of the many diners I saw tonight to get a light meal and a shake, I think we are going to have much fun here – out hotel is in Nob Hill, right in the middle of the city.

San Francisco looks like a great city! Wow. AND it has perfect weather – 55 at night and 65 during the day. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

Mer and I went west, young man, to come to a friend’s wedding, which is today (Saturday). We decided to make a mini-vacation of it, so we are here for five days, in the greater SF area.

Yesterday was travel day – we got up at 5:00, so we could leave at 6:30, for a 9:00 (non-stop!) flight from Cleveland to SF. This is a big country! It amazes me that I can start out in Cleveland (not the east coast), and still get on a plane and spend almost five hours on it and still be in the U.S. Amazing.

The flight was without incident (one of the two movies was Fool’s Gold, which was the in-flight movie when we went to the DR on another airline – that was funny to me), and we got to SF around 11:30. We got our rental car (a 2008 Ford Focus that I am very fond of) and were on the road by 1:00 or so. We wanted to check out a park north of SF, so we had to go through the city and across the Golden Gate bridge. While not super-efficient, it was very cool to see the city this way. We only have the car through today, so it was neat to see the city by car – after the wedding we’ll explore it on foot.

Our destination was Muir Woods, which is a redwood forest preserve. While not so big or well-known as the Redwood National Forest, it is only about 15 miles from SF. What a drive! It was all winding roads with ocean views from time to time. What fun!

The park was really nice. Redwoods are huge. We grabbed a quick bite in the park center, and then hit the paved trail. Until I saw the unpaved trail. That went up. And up. And up. Guess which trail we took?

It was a nice trail – strenuous enough to keep most tourists away but not so strenuous that we were panting (except for one small section). Meredith did great – I was more winded than she was. I am proud of her – she is in very good shape now compared to how she was with some trails we did in France last year.

The trail wound around all kinds of redwoods (did I mention they are huge?), and wound back and forth while going up the hill. It was called “Ocean View Trail,” so we kept being excited to see the ocean. After about an hour of climbing, we finally made it to the top of the hill, and a road. From the road, we were pretty sure we could see haze that was over the ocean. That’s our story, and we are sticking with it! Later, when we got back to the bottom of the trail and looked at the trail map again, the small print we did not read indicated that you could not actually see the ocean on Ocean View Trail until the very top. Ah, well.

On the wildlife front, we got treated to seeing a huge bird flying below us (when we were on top of the hill) – that is always weird to me to see a bird below me. We also saw two deer grazing on a slope that must have been 45 degrees – they were not concerned about us in the least. I figure they knew nothing could chase them up that slope.
 
It was also heartening to know that foreigners are still coming to the U.S. as tourists. On the trail and in the visitor center, we heard seven or eight different languages, including Chinese, Italian, French, Norwegian, German, Russian, Polish, and maybe more. We also heard U.S. accents from all over. Neat.

We left the park about 5:00, and one of the staff recommended taking Route 1 north. She said it was “fairly” pretty, and would take longer but avoid rush hour out of SF. We took her up on it. “Fairly” pretty turned out to be breathtaking! I have never seen coastline like that, and I have never been on a road like that either. Shannon’s friend Greg needs to get his car to this road! It has more switchbacks and hairpin turns than any road I have ever seen. You can never get faster than 35 mph, and 25 is more normal. It is worth it though. It did turn the two-hour drive into more like four hours, but I don’t regret it. Wonderful.

We got to the hotel about 8:00 and then went out to (walk) to get something to eat. I like the hotel – it is brand new, has internet in the room, and has an iPod-compatible radio alarm, so I can listen to my Shuffle as I write this. Very nice touch!

So, that is SF, Day 1. I’m looking forward to Jeff and Julie’s wedding today – I’m thrilled for Julie, plus I love weddings. More later if I have internet access in my SF hotel room.