Ode to Inner City Living

I have no need for traffic apps,
with crimson-colored highway maps
I ride the train to take a plane.
I get my weekly dose of rain:
I walk to where I want to play -
I never have to park valet.
I hear the hubbub of the street
from my apartment, warm and sweet.
I must watch out for errant cars,
and crazies hanging near the bars
as I parade to restaurants
and make my way to favorite haunts.
But all in all, it's lots of fun...
and now this poem is all done.

San Francisco Buckets

I've been so many awesome places, but for some reason San Francisco just keeps cropping up. It's probably because I've got some family there, and also there's something about the city that's romantic...I can't figure out if it's because of, or in spite of, all the old houses smashed together, the lack of parking, the crazy hills, or how expensive everything is.

I got in on Friday night and was absolutely starving. I had endured weird BART detours, a smelly man, and a lot of other things, so I was ready to see people I love.

Right: is the food version of American Gothic, courtesy of Patxi's pizza. We got ham and pineapple. Low fat cheese, whole wheat crust. Yum. We had Smitten first to spoil our appetites.

SF Bucket Cross-Off Item: Sausalito!

Then we went to Fred's in Sausalito for breakfast. It had pretty good reviews.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars. Right: I am in adoration over their fresh squeezed (daily) orange and grapefruit juice. It's what was advertised! Yum. You can totally customize your order with any combo imaginable. Millionaire's Bacon (Left: see N eating it with his Serious Bacon Face) took home the Gold Ribbon. Though the open face salmon breakfast sandwich and the citrus French toast were also winners.

 

Left:  Shoe House. The stained glass was cool...it's currently for rent, if you're interested. But don't disturb the current tenants, please.

Right: This is the most ostentatious/flamboyant/most original 'houseboat' we saw in Sausalito. Everything was color-coordinated, from the purple jetski covers to the ink on the sign, which says (in case you can't read it) Private Residence.

Below: View toward land.

 
Right: View from the side. Seriously, as far as you could see, it was just mast after mast after mast. There are at least 1,000 of them parked at Sausalito. Insanity. It was so quiet...there were only a few people out on the piers.

Left: View toward the bay.

Left: Flowers. Pink.

Right: Red plumber brush-ish.

Below: Fuchsia. Probably my (three-way tied for first) favorite picture of the whole trip. And I did it without a DSLR! 

Left: I don't know why they bothered to put up this sign. All the dogs we saw (at least seven) were off-leash. There was one mop-top dog that waddled slowly everywhere up and down the docks followed by its owner. Probably it couldn't see because its bangs were in its eyes.

Right: Underwater Monster (who is miraculously dry). He likes to pop up out of nowhere and roar to scare people on shore.


Left: Art Car. It was kind of cool except the creepy mostly naked doll on top. Apparently someone abandoned it about five years ago and people have been making "additions" ever since.

Then we went to the 1.5-acre to-scale model of the San Francisco Bay. Scientists used it between 1960 and 2000 to do experiments to see what would happen if, say, people decided to put a dam in the bay. (After 2000, they just use software.) They add sediment and see how the water flow changed, etc. 14 minutes = one day, and there's even low and high tide. It was like the world's most expensive sixth grade science fair project - I guess if the government isn't above using clay molding, all the sixth graders are in good company. Of course it is much more complicated than I give it credit for. The government wanted to be able to predict the effects of large-scale changes in the area before they implemented any big ideas because so many people live in the area and most of the water for northern California is concentrated in this large estuary.

Above, Right: The water-monster-turned Godzilla (N) is stomping on Berkeley.  Apparently he calls the estuary "home" as well.

Left: No label required, but I'll label it anyway: The Golden Gate Bridge in the rearview mirror, at 45 miles an hour. The cool part about it is that the picture was a total accident...I was just clicking to click. As I've said before and I'll say again, I heart my camera!

Above: ~~Cue freaky music.~~ Into the one-way tunnel! There's a five minute red light. Apparently bicyclists think they're immune from stoplights--one passed us when there was still about a minute left. It's safe to say I would never do that. Me, alone in a tunnel with nothing but my helmet to defend me? I think not.

Left: View from the Marine Mammal Center. It kind of looks like Big Sur but not. It's close, but no cigar. I so want to go to Monterey!!

Right: Male elephant seals weigh up to 5000 lbs, and are up to 16 feet long. They don't mature until they're five or six, and they get alpha status and harems (if they're big and/or excellent fighters) by the time they're eight or nine, and their prime breeding years are from 9-12, after which they have a hard time and generally live to be about 14. They fight with each other for dominance, and as you can see below, they have very long whiskers. Here you can see a life-size replica of a male elephant seal. N is auditioning for the role of Alpha Elephant as a backup plan in case the role of Godzilla ever stops working out for him. Judging by the photo, I'd say he's a shoo-in for the part. (Wonder how T would feel about that...)

Or maybe he could just get a job quoting "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe all day instead. (see left.)

Bet the raven wouldn't try to perch on top of this...(Right: Golden Gate Bridge.) If he did, he would be rebuffed by the zillion tourists.

(I was trying to take a picture from the car and get it exactly as we were going under the bridge supports, while going at said 45 mph. Almost, but not quite.)

Below: View of the city from Marin.

SF Bucket List Cross-off: Golden Gate Bridge.

The above two big pictures are my other two tied-for-first favorites. I made a bunch of bicyclists (what is it with bicyclists?) mad because I laid down on the sidewalk to get the proper angle for this shot. Also, above, see a really really big ship. I was afraid it was going to (a) get stuck under the bridge and (b) that it was going to run over one or more of the windsurfers that were cutting back and forth across the front of it. It dwarfed anything around it; I don't think you can get the perspective of how big it was by this picture. N was like, "what if you ran and tried to take a pic of it as it was going under the bridge?" and I ran and ran but bridges are like conveyor belts - you can run and run and run and you might think you're in the middle but it takes forever to get there. So I sprinted but didn't quite make it, due to the Conveyor Belt Effect. :/ But to see it was really cool.

Items which have no pictures:

A trip to the symphony! Brandenburg Concertos I, II, and IV, along with Water Music, 2nd movement. Winning aural combination. Also, a sickly sweet waitress at Max's Opera, and a very sweet but very yummy dessert - I adore ice cream! :)