We started our day “early” (for me). While Jamie was doing what girls do in the morning (it’s all smoke and mirrors to non women I think), I leaned out the room window, and took pictures. Half of this trip was so I could scratch my creative itch and take some photos. The other half was for my other half and me to enjoy some time vacationing together.
Across the street from us is a historic building that I forget the name of at the moment, but current the Academy of Art is there focusing on fashion. Here are the images form out our window (and yes, I think one of them looks totally fake, but it is not. It isn’t even edited except to take out some haze. Oh, and we got coffee too, it wasn’t good, spilled on the center console, and it wasn’t good. The “fake” looking images were taken with the worst lens I brought. The Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5 zoom. It is notoriously hazy, soft, and flat. This morning, it was amazing!
No one can say Jamie and me didn’t get our steps in. We walked a butt-load, and climbed 13 flights of stairs, and came back down (due to a broken elevator). The Coit Tower gives you quite the view of the city. Climbing up the guts of Coit Tower wasn’t our first adventure of the day, that was Legion of Honor Museum visit. Not what I was expecting, but it was “fancy” feeling or something. Robyn William’s often haunted this museum before his death.
Seeing the late great Robin Williams wasn’t the first thing we saw that tugged at our heart strings and made us jump a little. That was the Holocaust portion of the outdoor display.
Here are some paintings and sculptures I thought were interesting, or could be photographed in an interesting way. They were strict on what we could bring in, so I choose the 10-17mm fish-eye lens because it can take in an entire room. Unfortunately, it also makes everything bowed out.
After getting some culture, we jumped back in the rental and headed out to the tourist trap they call “Pier 39“. It really does feel like an amusement park. The wood is worn smooth, there’s a “feel” to everything you touch that screams “Wash your hands!”, and all of the employees are a little too excited to see you there.
The things I think I enjoyed the most (and probably Jamie too) were the Sea Lions and the Seagulls. I mean, when you walk up to the place it is fish, more fish, and all the fish in the air. Some smell like steamed crab, but most smell like Sea Lion burps.
About half way through our time at the pier, we hit up the always popular Hard Rock Cafe. There’s a lot of hype, and not so much “good food”. It looked good, but much like the hair bands of the 80’s, there was no substance after the presentation.
After the pier and lunch, we drove over to the Coit Tower. It is a memorial of sorts for the firemen of San Francisco. Ironically I think it looks like the end of a fire hose… Jamie thinks it looks like a Light Saber. Did I mention steps, stairs, and 13 floors? Yeah, the elevator was busted, so this 56 year old, over weight, haven’t hiked a mile in years said “sure, lets just use the stairs”. Going up wasn’t terrible and going down was actually not too bad. I only took fun pictures, nothing that grand, just fun. Oh, and there was a dog up there that only spoke French, no shit, just French.
Once we got down and done flogging this old man up and down a bazillion stairs, we headed over to Target to pick up a phone holder for the rental, and a water bottle for Jamie. Driving in this crazy ass, small street, crowded city with a GPS flipping around the center console is a recipe for a wreck. Needless to say, the vigorous journey up and down the tower brought me to a state of sweaty shaking food crash, so we headed back to the hotel, rested a minute, and headed for dinner (the bad part of San Francisco isn’t too far away we found).
This walk took us up, and to the right (last night was just up, and kitty corner to the left). About a block to the right, things got a little uncomfortable. The sidewalk was absolutely full of homeless so we walked in the street, but every block after was also homeless, and quite a few people on more than the mellow stuff. I stuffed what I could of my camera (it’s NOT small) into my wind breaker jacket pocket (thanks for the Windbreaker mom), and moved Jamie to the street side while we walked. Every stop light was a little tight, and uncomfortable, but once we got to the tinny Mexican restaurant things calmed down.
While we were waiting to order (you ordered, and then found a seat. There were only about 10 places to sit, at 5 tables for 2 people each), I installed the WayMo app, and got to work figuring out how to order us a self driving car because “We’re brave, we’re strong, we can be grown ups about a robot driving us back to the hotel”.
Here’s a 30-40 second video (with bad sound) of our trip — The car sees ALL KINDS OF SHIT! People, poles, cars, bikes, dogs, litter, etc etc .. And when the light turns green, that car don’t mess around, it zips off like no one’s business. Of course they are all Jaguar electric vehicles, so the interiors are really nice too. 5 out of 5 for the ride, 4 out of 5 for figuring out where it was going to pick us up (it took a minute to understand which side of the road). Not very spendy either. Right at ~$18 for the 5 minute trip (we were tired of walking, and I wasn’t in the mood to worry about my camera anymore).
Here is a link to the video (It is stored on my Google cloud. I will re-format the video when I get home so it’ll play on here in it’s own window.
Today was a lot more than I thought I could do (my Morton’s Neuroma has been a dick lately). Jamie’s fit bit was all over it, and my watch is seemingly very excited that I got enough sleep, and beat my goals two days in a row.
Tomorrow is Muir Woods National Monument (Redwood Trees) with Jamie’s high school friend (I “just” forgot her name .. crap!). Jamie grew up not too many hours away from here in Stockton California.
See you all tomorrow, this guy has to get a handful of Ibuprofen down his gullet, get showered, and get to bed (Jamie has been “sleep breathing” for over 2 hours already).
~me
