Every Rose Has It's Thorn

I seriously believe that I have a restless soul. My brain never stops moving, which is not always a good thing. I toss and turn, continually second guess decisions, and wonder what life would be like if I lived in City A, but maybe City B, or a combination of City A and City B with plenty of room to indulge in what I believe is the glamorous life of a gypsy. Only, without the negative aspects like stealing and living places illegally.

Since I have no idea how long I will be in a particular place, I try to make a serious effort to get out and find my own adventure, to make sure that I really live and indulge in the various activities of my new surroundings. That leads me to the subject of this blog post. One random Sunday, I decided that I was going to get up early, and walk down to the Marina District for a relaxing cup of coffee before hopping on MUNI to the parking lot of the Golden Gate Bridge. I'd take a leisurely stroll across the bridge, catch the MUNI over to Golden Gate Park as the fog rolled in to view the Picasso exhibit before heading home to walk and feed the dog. Sounds like a most perfect day doesn't it?

I should mention that I have a love/hate relationship with MUNI (the bus system). It gets me where I am going, but rarely in a timely, comfortable manner.

New York Times' Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

My morning didn't start out quite like I planned, because I forgot that I needed to make RBD3 some baked goods because LTD and LDL were going to be taking a break due to the impending arrival of MLL. See the previous post of me about my lack of baking equipment. It was quite the experiment. I followed the instructions perfectly, but they didn't tell me that I need to mix the dry ingredients together before mixing into the wet. I don't have a stand mixer, so my forearms had quite the work out. But at least the set-up was neat and tidy!

ALL these people were on my bus.

After messing up my cookies (waaaaay too floury), I walked to Fillmore to catch the sweet view from the top of the hill and grab the bus to the GG bridge. The bus is late. 20 minutes late. But it would be just my luck to head to catch another bus, or start walking, or just go get my car, and then my bus would show up. So me and about 20 foreigners are hanging out, waiting to get to the bridge. Pretty soon it becomes apparent that I live in the city (and I am by myself) so every single party asked me if MUNI was always unreliable. If someone would pick us up soon. We became friends. Good thing too, since when a non-full bus finally arrived (3 full ones passed without stopping) we crammed in like sardines. I took a picture of people exiting so you would have some idea of what the ride was like. OH! I forgot to mention that by the time the bus picked us up (waited for over an hour) the fog had started rolling in, covering bridge views.

After throwing myself out of the bus to prevent trampling, I headed to the bridge to start my walk. With 1,000 of my closest friends. Lucky for me - the Park Service is aware of heavy crowds. To make things even better, the west side of the bridge is closed, meaning that tourists pedestrians, tourist cyclists, leisure cyclists, leisure runners, and crazy people that ride 150 miles a day were all on one 8ft wide piece of concrete suspended in air. Plenty of crisis hot lines were around though. I politely asked the German next to me to take my picture. He took a long time and finally said "Oh. Is it just you?". Yes sir! Just me! Just take the picture already. It's a terrible picture of me. One of those - I shouldn't have to wear sunglasses because there is no sun, and yet I still squint - ugh.

Claustrophobes, turn back now!

Yes, I did this in August and am wearing a sweater.

So I walk the bridge. It gets much better after you make your way past the advertised "vista" where most people stop to shield themselves from the wind, take a picture, and turn around. Truthfully, it was very calming. I couldn't hear much but the tinnitus anyway, so the rush of the cars flying by was soothing. I took a few pictures along the way for your viewing pleasure. Side note: when I take pictures, I move to the side of the "trail" so that the cyclists, runners, and walkers can pass. Not everyone is aware of this piece of travel/picture etiquette. I find that young females are the biggest perpetrators of this rule. They seem to think that every one will think they are cute and funny, lining up their giants bikes across the entire span of the walkway. Yeah. Super cool. Cyclists rang their bells like crazy. Kind of funny.

Lookout for jumpers. Easy to do without fencing. 

Pretty cool right? Even covered in fog.

I enjoyed my walk. I can cross that off the "must do" list. I enjoyed it so much that I was tempted to walk all the way to Sausalito and have a tasty adult beverage (like a hot toddy - in August). But Picasso and his Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso Paris awaited. So I touched the other side of the bay (to say I completely crossed), turned around, and speed walked back to the parking lot to catch the next MUNI to Golden Gate Park and the  de Young Museum. In hindsight, I should have driven my own car, or ridden my bike but that's 20-20 right? Oh! I forgot to mention, that will I was trying to take a picture of the small window of no fog while waiting for the bus back, people just stepped right in front of me. I just I left too much space between me and the railing. Clearly, totally the fault of me and my personal space.

Really? All up in my "zoom" space

MUNI finally comes to pick me up at 4:00pm. I just discover (via my slow as molasses iPhone) that they stop selling tickets at 4:30 so that the museum can close at 5:30. What? On a week night? But I'm making decent time. I only waited for the bus for 20 minutes, stopped at 10 different places, and finally got off at Fulton. I immediately cross the street and start walking toward the de Young. Except I went the wrong way. I was supposed to be headed toward the Rose Garden and instead I'm headed to the polo fields. GG Park is ginormous.

I missed the last ticket sale. Even the Academy of Sciences had closed at that point. The only food left in the area was Indian (ew) and Blue Bottle Coffee (delicious, but I'm already sleeping funny). The Japanese tea Garden was still open. Everyone and their grandmother was headed over there and it was another entrance fee. So, I called it a day. Missed the 44 - decided to walk to the 1. Rode the bus for 5 minutes until it broke down and we had to transfer to a different bus. Finally got to my home stop, walked inside and discovered that Pax had thrown up in his crate. Awesome. At least I saw the rose garden! In August. Even though it feels like Winter.

If my main goal was to have an adventure in the place I currently call home, then mission accomplished.