Yes, Diane and I went to San Francisco in mid-July. Yes, I’ve haven’t posted a thing here since.
I had a four-day conference to attend in San Francisco. I went out two days early to see the city.
We didn’t ride bikes or rent a car. This was a public transport and walking kind of trip. BART was helpful for the longer distances. The city buses and trolleys (muni) got us around for the shorter distances.
We never had a chance to ride the iconic cable cars, but that seems to be more of a tourist thing anyway. I was really fond of the ferry from Sausalito to San Francisco – It had a bar on board.
San Francisco is a great city to live without a car. Too bad it’s expensive and crowded. Many people (most?) use public transportation. Bikes are everywhere. Most bicyclists seem to follow the laws. Even the pedestrians are predictable and law-abiding. It’s a much different environment than Louisville.
There seems to be a bunch of unwritten rules about riding in San Francisco. I’m a bit glad that I didn’t have a bike with me – as I would have not known the rules initially.
We had Friday plans to meet up with Jenny and Shawn for dinner and drinks in Oakland. Jenny and Shawn were the couple that visited back in February for the Silly Bike Race Cyclocross Worlds Championships
We took the BART through the Trans-bay Tube over to Oakland and walked a few blocks to Chop Bar. After good drinks, food, and conversations, we walked around the Jack London District and stopped by a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop.
We spent one day walking around Chinatown, checking out the area around the Ferry Building, taking a bus over to Presidio and walking the trails. We walked a lot. We took another bus across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito where we had dinner and made friends with a large bird.
During our time there, we visited two breweries, one near our hotel in the Financial District, the other in Haight-Ashbury. We ate at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Squat and Gobble.
Sausalito was interesting. We had dinner and did a wine tasting. I can’t imagine living there. The tourist traffic was incredibly thick.
There are so many things I didn’t have time to see. I wanted to visit Alcatraz. I wanted to stick a toe in the cold water. I wanted to visit more of the nearby cities. I wanted to ride a bike across the Golden Gate Bridge.
I was fairly busy with the conference. Diane went out and did some shopping and sightseeing on her own while I was busy.
I want to visit again, with more time and money. It was hard to leave. Part of me wants to move there. The cost of housing is sky-high, so even doubling my salary would mean a lower standard of living. I did browse some real-estate ads, but to live in the city itself would relegate me to a third-floor apartment somewhere. I like having my little yard and little house here in Louisville.