Regular Life

Golden Gate Bridge in Fog
(click any image to enlarge and sharpen)

Our final night, we drove to San Francisco.

I had never been into the city from the Oakland side. The drive over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge conjured up memories of its 1989 collapse, and more recently the Minnesota bridge collapse on I-35. It is a 1.78-mile, double-decker bridge, part suspension, part cantilevers and trusses. It crosses Yerba Buena Island about midway across the bay (including a tunnel through rock), and then makes its way into San Francisco.

San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
(cropped to remove car dashboard and ceiling)

Rather fittingly, the end nearest Oakland looks utilitarian, almost like a train bridge. The west end, leading into San Francisco, looks much more elegant and artistic. With its drab gray color, it still doesn’t compare aesthetically to the Golden Gate Bridge. Wikipedia has a pretty good entry about the bridge. Apparently there’s a re-design effort underway, and the bridge will close on Labor Day Weekend 2007 for major work.

But let’s leave the bridge talk to the card-playing blue-haired ladies.

The fog enshrouding San Francisco didn’t allow any clear approach shots, and I snapped them from the moving vehicle. Good enough excuses? Great. Let’s keep going.

Coit Tower stands high atop Telegraph Hill.

We hit Embarcadero, but turned uphill (which is the only way to turn from Embarcadero if you don’t want to hit the bay). We searched for gasoline and when we finally found some I was surprised at the price. It was “only” $3.23/gal — less than the $3.39 I saw at South Lake Tahoe the night before.

A shot looking back from Embarcadero.

There I was, in a city I first (and last) visited in May 2001. One that I figured I wouldn’t see again for a very long time. Then, I interview for a job, and within a few months I find myself enjoying the cool Pacific breeze and listening to a ship’s fog horn as my co-worker pumps gas. (It would have been sooner, but the company allows a manager up to 90 days for an internal transfer.) Rather than pay $16 to park, we parked for free a few blocks straight uphill from Embarcadero.

The city, she’s bustling.

Sourdough Reptiles

We patted our own backs for wearing long pants, but wished those backs were covered by jackets. Brrr! It was cold! In August!

Food was our first order of business, and we chose an Italian/Seafood place with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge on one side, the Bay Bridge on the other. From our table, I only had to turn my head to see either.

Boats and Golden Gate Bridge from our table (blurry menu sticking into bottom of pic)

You remember the Jackrabbit Slim’s scene from Pulp Fiction? Mia and Vincent (Uma and John Travolta) are in a booth and she orders a $5 milkshake. Vincent rants about how he just has to taste it. He takes a long draw from the straw and then admits, “That’s a pretty f*cking good milkshake. I don’t know if it’s worth five dollars but it’s pretty f*cking good.”

When asked if I wanted salad, I said, “No, thanks.” I wanted to save room and money for dessert. Then, one of my co-workers got hers, a spring mix with fresh made salad dressing.

I asked the server, “Um, what other fresh dressings do you have?”

“We have Thousand Island –”

“Stop. I’ll have one of those salads, please, with Thousand Island.”

I saw that it was good and said that it was good. I wolfed it down and washed it down. “So, how much was this salad?” I asked my co-worker.

“About nine dollars, I think,” she replied.

I almost asked if there was any way I could return it. I paraphrased Travolta’s line, cleaning it up for work. “That was a pretty good salad. I don’t know if was worth nine dollars, but it was pretty good.”

Actual price on my ticket: $9.50

On the way back to the car, we walked around a little more, perused Crazy Shirts and a few other shops, and then stopped at a bar for the other guy with us to have one more beer (but mostly for two of us to use the facilities).

Cigar shop with lofty claims.

The municipal (see electric lines going up)

Wall O’ Booze

Keg taps (hold that camera still for 1/4 second)

I dozed off and on during the 90-minute ride back to our hotel. That was fine, because I wasn’t driving.

California. You live in the right place out there, and almost everything you can imagine is within a two-hour radius. Beaches, mountains, world-renowned cities, freaks, and fools. No wonder it’s so expensive.

To see my first go ’round at pictures of San Francisco and the surrounding area, click here.

Another guy has a much better picture of Telegraph Hill here.

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