I needed to spend some time with a customer in San Ramon, CA, outside of San Francisco the latter half of last week, so SHG came along and we made a weekend of it, he's got some good posts on our time there. It was good to get away from Houston. Pretty much everything has been stressful, turning me into stress-boi: House is still on the market with not very many showings; work is suddenly overly busy with its own twists and turns; the ex is rattling my cage to no end; and the pups are regressing into some bad behavior. It was time to get the Hell outta Dodge.
The weather for the most part was astounding. I got to experience all variants: rain/cold, fog, micro-climates, sun, breeze. We stayed in the Castro, which is half messy and half clean. We spent time with SHG's family at the Farmers' Market and their house in Sunset. We saw my buddy Judi for a pint at the Beach Chalet (which has a fascinating history) and sunset. We also just poked around in general, which is my favorite thing to do - unscheduled time was all that was on the schedule. As waremouse put it when we saw him, it was "very Bhuddist".
This was my first "real" visit there where I was either 1. out or 2. had some time to see something. Several things struck me about San Francisco: the driving is a mess (I guess that's just CA), but the highways are squeaky clean. The people are generally pretty nice, but I felt my East Coast driving behaviors returning. Rain confuses them. The city has a very European feel to it, or at least it does after you have lived in Texas for a while. And in the Castro, well, let's just say I found it to just be overwhelming, between the cool cafes, houses, shops, streetcars, and rainbow flags. Let's just call it Mecca for now.
We only hit two bars, one of which I forget the name of but was bearish and cool and laid back. No smoking in any of them, though! The other was Twin Peaks, and we had a debaucherous 11 AM Sunday Cosmo there before leaving. We poked around some stores, I have never seen so many lube shoppes in my life. We grabbed coffee at the BearBucks where I actually got so much attention from the clientele that I nearly passed out on the spot (I feel like I don't get much in Houston).
Here are some pretty pictures - I took some, SHG took some.
Alcatraz in the fog
Piece of crap rent-car: Pontiac G6, 4 cyl., under-powered, drives sloppy, too many blind spots.
Us by the Bay Bridge by the Farmers' Market.
Us running from the water as Judi took our picture. She introduced us to the Green Flash (or something like that), where at the last instant of sunset on a low horizon the light flashes green (or blue/indigo if you are really lucky) due to preferential refraction of short wavelengths of sunlight.
Me by you-know-what (holding on to my BearBucks for dear life; ok, not really)
Me, again. It's tough holding up that pole.
Judi and I at sunset on the Pacific. This was only the second time I saw and touched the Pacific Ocean. I love the ocean. The water is so calming.
