San Francisco

I loved Chinatown, and would stay there again in a second.


Getting lost is great sometimes
Love the vegetation out there. Totally different from what I normally see.
I thought this was positively magical. The books light up at night. See the words on the sidewalk?
The view from Coit tower. Thanks Coit Tower. Because of the climb to get to you, I am now treadmilling it up every day. Out of shape, that's me.
Here I am, pre-Alcatraz Tour. That's the hat that I made on the way out there. Good thing I had it too, because that ferry ride was brutal. That wind just cuts right through you. I bought The Perfect Button at Britex Fabrics earlier that day. Man, that store rules.
Alcatraz. This was my favorite thing in SF. I LOVED the self guided audio tour. Well done, not too cheesy, and fit right in with the night tour that we took. It was dark and gloomy in the prison, and a few times I got REALLY spooked. Me and my imagination, at it again.
The view from the boat, leaving the Wharf. I love that SF fog. It's like someone just takes a big gray blanket and throws it over the city. My kind of weather.
Love this- taken while preparing to dock at Alcatraz. I am thinking of having this printed for sure. I didn't know about the American Indian occupation in th 1970's. Learn something new everyday, why don'tcha.
Gaurd tower with flowers. One thing that struck me about Alcatraz is all the foreboding gloom of rundown towers and such, and the beautiful flowers that grow there. I loved the juxtaposition of it.
Bars on the bars on the windows in one of the cell blocks. Pretty serious stuff there. I could seriously do a whole blog entry on Alcatraz alone. LOVED IT.
Off we go to the Haight-Ashbury district. I love how this turned out.
Golden Gate Park Botanical Gardens. Stop it with the amazing flowers already.
And the trees. We have nothing like this where I am from. And I am surely the worse for it.
Japanese Tea Garden. I want to live here. It looks fake, doesn't it?
Lombard Street. I only include this photo because to me it reminds me of one of the most interesting things about San Francisco. I tried to imagine living on or around Lombard St. There you are, going out to get your paper, and there are people with camcorders leaning out of their cars, whooping it up while riding down your street. The attractions in SF are largely like this- you have people living by the steps up to Coit Tower, someone lives in the house at 710 Ashbury (the house of Grateful Dead fame) . Life just sort of unceremoniously goes on around all this stuff that's so remarkable. That truly boggles me.

I really, truly loved visiting this city- even if at every turn it reminded me that I am neither hip nor fit enough to live there.