A Good Day in the City

Ambient was warming as the fog was burning and we timed it well in terms of getting on public transportation to find seats for an hour long ride into San Francisco.

It turned out to be a gorgeous day and we with our visitors from out of town revisited parts of the city we did not have an appetite for by ourselves.

We started at the Ferry Building and pier 1 on the northeastern corner of the city and went west all the way to see the historic piers that provided home for trade ships over 100 years ago along with some restored hardware.

Quite a Parabolic sight - old cargo ship Balacutha in foreground to the Golden Gate Bridge

Alcatraz - the rock

that is a Tall Sail - or is it?

Along the way we also saw the newest addition to the sea faring culture parked at pier 27 that now welcomes large cruisers - over 2,500 of them to go gawk while consuming all day buffets. The one in the dock belonged to Princess Cruise Lines.

We also wandered the birthplace of a 100 plus year old chocolate making establishment started by an Italian called Ghirardelli.

Today owned by a large Swiss holding company they produce fine American made chocolates right here in the bay area.

Calories boosted by a helping of cacao and sugar we snacked our way a few uphill city blocks to view the crooked most street called Lombard and then sauntered some 260 steps down to another that appeared to go up and downhill at the same time. The glutes are gonna hurt tonight.

Subsequently ambled our way towards the sound of sea lions perched at pier 39. Watched them sunbathe and then feeling light headed from hunger wound down to an ice cream shop back at the Ferry Building.

Live Life King Size

no SPF needed - Sealions @ Pier 39

Wrapped up the day by the Bay Bridge and witnessed the light art come aglow and then went into the underworld to find our commuter train back home.

Comments

New England is gleaming in the fall

This autumn the weather gods cooperated as we took a family trip in the northeast to see six states that qualify or makeup what is known colloquially in America as New England. Mass, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island (tiniest state in the union). The outing helped tally up the states we either lived in, visited or have worked in to 47. Guess which three have eluded this intrepid traveling family. Any rate the drive was all in about 1,800 miles and included some memorable geographic wonders or points of interest. Easternmost part of state of Massachusetts being one. Furthest drivable road east in Mass being another. Visit to all Ivy League schools (term harkens to a collegiate athletics conference and generally regarded as elite academic institutes of some repute worldwide) is another random bucket list item of which this trip afforded the chance to knock two more of the list. Dartmouth in Hanover, NH and Brown (and its sister institute the RISD - school f

Searching for a lavish 'fill in the blank with other adjectives and gender' in bed

Many of the readers of this blog have experienced this. Strange sounding messages popping up in your text or WA or emails all day long from some exotic sounding locale with an out of this world individual looking for love, sex, money or other paraphernalia to get a high. I mean granted that electronic spamming is a low cost enterprise and all but the sheer volumes and the variety in these exhortations is beyond imagination. Having a desire to engage you in some sort of sexual payola or invest in some arcane crypto scheme must be a profound algorithm that someone from Oklahoma to Odessa is cranking on through the night and watching one in a few million fall for. Otherwise this nonsense would not exist I suspect. It would be funny to watch the lifecycle of some such persona that creates said content and that of a prospect for this invite becoming an unwilling or willing participant. Then that whole thing could go on some social channel and earn likes and subscriptions for someone else a

Lakeside frivolities

We moved to the Charlotte area not knowing where exactly our new home would be. Turns out it was by a popular lake formed by the damming of the Catawba river which flows north to south in the Carolinas. Local electricity generation utility built a series of dams along the waterway for hydro and couple nuclear plants as well to supply the state grid. The lake our house butts into is Lake Wylie. While tract home build has picked up in the Carolinas the developer often carves out parcels that they can get their hands on leaving behind privately owned lots that the individual owner may not want to sell. Our house is part of a subdivision but backs into actual lake front yardage that has always been part of legacy family owned properties who chose to build a cabin or getaway and did not sell to a corporation wanting to build in the hundreds. As such we can see the water through the year but it does not afford actual water access. That privilege is to our neighbors who still maintain thei

Brown Motion

Search This Blog