California Continued — The Bridge
OK, so back to the Californialog (or, for Cory, “Californialogue” : )
When we left off, it was Monday afternoon, and I’d just finished the Berkeley campus tour. I wish I’d had more time to explore the campus on my own, but I had a deadline — it was 3:00, and I had to be at the dock to Alcatraz at 5. Plenty of time I thought, even including the fact that I would have to drive 40 minutes back to Santa Clara to pick up Mike then 40 minutes back up to San Francisco, rather than just make a quick jaunt over the Bay Bridge. Well, it would have been plenty of time had afternoon traffic not pushed the 40 minutes each way to an hour-plus each way. Oops.
So yeah, I summoned up every ounce of maniacal driving DNA I could muster from the automotively-obsessed end of my gene pool (seriously… I mean kudos to Mike for not pissing his pants, ‘cuz we really pushed the envelope…), but to no avail — we pulled up in front of the entrance just in time to watch the boat leave. Damnit. Luckily, they were kind enough to let us exchange our tickets for Thursday. Which kinda sucked because that meant I wouldn’t get to take yoga with Manouso, but c’est la vie. We were just glad they were willing to exchange, because the ticket purchase terms didn’t require it of them.
So with the evening ahead of us and the agenda suddenly cleared, after an interlude for dinner a few doors down at Pier 23, we figured it was a good night to do the requisite San Francisco tourist stops. Of course this meant spending a good bit of time around the Golden Gate Bridge — mostly in and around Fort Point, then driving across the bridge, and stopping for a few more shots from the north end. Then it was off to Coit Tower, making sure to take a spin down “crooked” Lombard Street along the way.
These areas of course demanded a huge number of pictures, so hit the Flickr set to see them all. But here are a couple of my favorites:
Unfortunately I don’t know jack about setting exposure times and whatnot so the night shots from Coit didn’t come out too well, but they’re in the Flickr set, some of the light patterns are interesting : )
Once we finished playing tourist, it was time to get our booze on. Stops for the evening included a nondescript tavern called the Red Jack Saloon (someone had recommended it, but it was nothing special), and I think we hit another Irish pub. Closed out the evening with another stop for late-night Thai — I [EDIT: sorry, no I just realized the second Irish Pub & the second Thai joint both wouldn't come until Thursday. However I (still)] think I’ve decided that a town can only rightfully call itself a real city if I can get a good red curry or basil stir fry after midnight. Sorry, Nashville.
Woot!