I met Lutheran Lucciola and her husband for an awesome tour of San Francisco. She has written a great post about the day’s happenings. I took over 40 pictures, uploading the best to the gallery.

San Francisco looked great with its parks, cable cars, and bridges, but the homes completely overgrew the island like Coruscant in the Star Wars movies. Dolores Park made a great contrast against homes that tried like mad to look unique among each other’s neighbors. L.L. and husband brought lunch, and we had a picnic.

The Cliff House made me regret leaving my coat in the trunk of the car, but it yielded some great views. It was hard to take pictures because the bright sunlight slammed my photo-grays black, and I couldn’t see the screen on the camera. The high winds made it possible to surf with parasails. It’s quite a shame they are sticking a Land’s End just up the hill from the House.

We saw Robin William’s home in Sea Cliff. It’s a nice house, but it looked like he got a bad deal on his exterior paint job. Sea Cliff did yield some great shots of the Golden Gate Bridge from Baker Beach. I tried to adjust the brightness and contrast to really bring out the bridge, but I may have to get some help from a real Photoshop guru. I didn’t see any, um, alternative activity in the photos, but you’re welcome to look.

Nearly all the Presidio’s barracks were getting some sort of face lift, but the cemetery on the hill was quite a nice view. The slope of the cemetery reminded me of the cemetery at Fort Leavenworth, though the Presidio only had a fraction of the stones.

Pier 39 itself is a tourist trap, but walking to the end rewarded us with a nice picture of Alcatraz and a sailboat. I was also able to obtain my second Hard Rock Cafe pilsner glass in two days, the other coming from Sacramento. We walked down to Fisherman’s Wharf, where we visited a cool museum of old coin-operated games.

Dinner was nice, pesto sauce over penne pasta and some cookies with great chocolate on them.

It was a great day, and I wish the wife and kids were there to see it. We did a lot of walking and driving over some serious hills. I’m going to need that alarm clock to wake up for church.

Thanks again, L.L., for such a great tour. I had a lot of fun.


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