Go West, Part Two!
Previously, our intrepid heroes fizrep and chaosvizier, accompanied by the stalwart heroines AB and HG, braved the wilds of Northern California. Of Nature they partook, and took part, and it was good. But their travels continued...
3 December 2007:
After our exhilarating and exhausting expedition to Mount Diablo in search of Baal (alas, we had come too late), this day was a more restful and relaxing venture into that wacky place known as The City. Ah, San Francisco, how crazy you are.
We started off with a search for tasty cookies. The cookie shop claimed to make them all themselves, but all their products said "Made in Minnesota" or some such. That makes them liars, but since the goods were tasty, it was ok.
Our search for Homeless Bush Guy was in vain, which is a shame, because he might be the best thing the city has to offer. So we had to make up for it with some base tourism.
We wandered across the bridge and then back, and then moved along the piers in search of sea lions. Sea lions are cute, and generally a friendly community-minded bunch...
...unless you were this guy.
Further down the pier, we found a chocolate shop, complete with a homeless Chocolate Bear out front. His apron said "Give me chocolate and nobody gets hurt." This is a philosophy we got behind 100%.
Later we drove down Lombard Street, which claims to be The Windiest Street in the World. It is not, in reality, the windiest in the world, but it is pretty damn windy.
[Note: Just reading this might give you an inaccurate impression. "Windy" here does not mean "like the wind, with the air motion and the blowing and the breezy and stuff"; it means "like a corkscrew, twisting back and forth in a very nonlinear fashion". That's a long I, not a short I.]
I took a video of us driving down the street, which maybe I could post someday. Or whatever. It was fun.
San Francisco is slapped upon the face of a few mountains, which manifest themselves quite suddenly at times. You'll just be driving along, looking for stuff, and all of a sudden a cliff face looms at you, impeding all progress. Clearly the city planners did not reticulate enough splines back in the day. And if you get that, mad props to you.
Telegraph Hill thus escaped us, as it hid atop one such cliff. But it looks cool, and I'm sure it was neat. We shall meet again, sinister tower!
We concluded with a nighttime stop along the beach, where the Pacific Ocean did its thing, and where someone had lit an enormous bonfire and was just sitting there basking in its warmth. Random, and yet pretty cool. We then passed by angledge's old digs where funkyplaid resides on a search for tasty Chinese donuts; alas, the donut shop closed ten minutes before we arrived. Curses! Foiled again...
4 December 2007:
Once again, the allure of nature was strong, and fizrep, HG and I headed north towards Point Reyes, for more sightseeing and naturey goodness. On the way, we passed lots of cow farms. Big big dairy farms. In fact, one such farm was the farm which sold the milk that fizrep and AB usually bought at the supermarket. I managed to physically restrain him from going out for a "free refill".
We stopped by an abandoned farm and began our trailblazing. For starters, this place had things called "cascades", which were sorely lacking on Mount Diablo.
Then we reached the beach. The shore at Point Reyes was amazing. Here the Pacific dashed itself along the coast with enormous force. Every wave was breaking well over the height of an adult human being, and the mist could be seen up and down the shore where even bigger waves were doing their thing.
A few hundred yards to the south was Elephant Point. At a guess, this was a big rocky chunk of land that had not quite eroded away like the rest of the cliff around it. The point was about 100 feet high, at a guess. And, as you can see (sort of) in the picture below, the waves were smashing into it and rearing up ABOVE ITS PEAK.
You can barely make out the smaller (only about 30' high or so) rock in front of it, because it is consumed by water.
Even less visible is something that boggled our minds: PEOPLE. We could make out two people who had somehow gone from the hill down to the dip and then up the rear side of the rock to reach just below the peak, WHILE GIGANTIC WAVES WERE SMASHING INTO IT. On the list of Crazy Motherfuckers With Huge Balls, those folks were way up there. We were sure we'd be reading about a pair of missing fools in the next day's paper.
Elsewhere on the beach, however, we discovered a tragic case of Murder Most Foul! Someone, probably a ninja, had murdered the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
RIP, FSM. We hardly knew ya.
From there, we hiked along the ridge to the north, beholding even more wave-crashing action...
And then we came to the top of the ridge... or at least, as far as we wanted to go...
...because there were big scary elk around. Running wild and loose. By the dozen.
We retreated and drove back to San Francisco to partake in All-You-Can-Eat Sushi. Which, honestly, is never a bad thing.
Still more to come! The West has a great bounty to offer... and some pictures too.
3 December 2007:
After our exhilarating and exhausting expedition to Mount Diablo in search of Baal (alas, we had come too late), this day was a more restful and relaxing venture into that wacky place known as The City. Ah, San Francisco, how crazy you are.
We started off with a search for tasty cookies. The cookie shop claimed to make them all themselves, but all their products said "Made in Minnesota" or some such. That makes them liars, but since the goods were tasty, it was ok.
Our search for Homeless Bush Guy was in vain, which is a shame, because he might be the best thing the city has to offer. So we had to make up for it with some base tourism.
We wandered across the bridge and then back, and then moved along the piers in search of sea lions. Sea lions are cute, and generally a friendly community-minded bunch...
...unless you were this guy.
Further down the pier, we found a chocolate shop, complete with a homeless Chocolate Bear out front. His apron said "Give me chocolate and nobody gets hurt." This is a philosophy we got behind 100%.
Later we drove down Lombard Street, which claims to be The Windiest Street in the World. It is not, in reality, the windiest in the world, but it is pretty damn windy.
[Note: Just reading this might give you an inaccurate impression. "Windy" here does not mean "like the wind, with the air motion and the blowing and the breezy and stuff"; it means "like a corkscrew, twisting back and forth in a very nonlinear fashion". That's a long I, not a short I.]
I took a video of us driving down the street, which maybe I could post someday. Or whatever. It was fun.
San Francisco is slapped upon the face of a few mountains, which manifest themselves quite suddenly at times. You'll just be driving along, looking for stuff, and all of a sudden a cliff face looms at you, impeding all progress. Clearly the city planners did not reticulate enough splines back in the day. And if you get that, mad props to you.
Telegraph Hill thus escaped us, as it hid atop one such cliff. But it looks cool, and I'm sure it was neat. We shall meet again, sinister tower!
We concluded with a nighttime stop along the beach, where the Pacific Ocean did its thing, and where someone had lit an enormous bonfire and was just sitting there basking in its warmth. Random, and yet pretty cool. We then passed by angledge's old digs where funkyplaid resides on a search for tasty Chinese donuts; alas, the donut shop closed ten minutes before we arrived. Curses! Foiled again...
4 December 2007:
Once again, the allure of nature was strong, and fizrep, HG and I headed north towards Point Reyes, for more sightseeing and naturey goodness. On the way, we passed lots of cow farms. Big big dairy farms. In fact, one such farm was the farm which sold the milk that fizrep and AB usually bought at the supermarket. I managed to physically restrain him from going out for a "free refill".
We stopped by an abandoned farm and began our trailblazing. For starters, this place had things called "cascades", which were sorely lacking on Mount Diablo.
Then we reached the beach. The shore at Point Reyes was amazing. Here the Pacific dashed itself along the coast with enormous force. Every wave was breaking well over the height of an adult human being, and the mist could be seen up and down the shore where even bigger waves were doing their thing.
A few hundred yards to the south was Elephant Point. At a guess, this was a big rocky chunk of land that had not quite eroded away like the rest of the cliff around it. The point was about 100 feet high, at a guess. And, as you can see (sort of) in the picture below, the waves were smashing into it and rearing up ABOVE ITS PEAK.
You can barely make out the smaller (only about 30' high or so) rock in front of it, because it is consumed by water.
Even less visible is something that boggled our minds: PEOPLE. We could make out two people who had somehow gone from the hill down to the dip and then up the rear side of the rock to reach just below the peak, WHILE GIGANTIC WAVES WERE SMASHING INTO IT. On the list of Crazy Motherfuckers With Huge Balls, those folks were way up there. We were sure we'd be reading about a pair of missing fools in the next day's paper.
Elsewhere on the beach, however, we discovered a tragic case of Murder Most Foul! Someone, probably a ninja, had murdered the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
RIP, FSM. We hardly knew ya.
From there, we hiked along the ridge to the north, beholding even more wave-crashing action...
And then we came to the top of the ridge... or at least, as far as we wanted to go...
...because there were big scary elk around. Running wild and loose. By the dozen.
We retreated and drove back to San Francisco to partake in All-You-Can-Eat Sushi. Which, honestly, is never a bad thing.
Still more to come! The West has a great bounty to offer... and some pictures too.