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.