End of the year catch up

Walk #41

Finding time to walk this month has been nuts! Between Shrek , the holidays, and getting on a boat I've had a hard time fitting in any walks. Which also means, I haven't had any time to inspect an gingerbread houses. Boo! So when I made plans to meet the McEnoys, I took a detour from the office and hiked California Street and did the drive-by. Obviously Grace Cathedral is not made of Ginger Bread, but the 2-story creation from the Fairmont is all candy and frosting - yumo!

I continued on California to the Embarcadero where I got to run a little with this cutie pie

Adorable, yes? He was even cute when he picked up poo.

Here's the view from the Embarcadero.

Not sure why I love it, but I always do. I turned onto Bryan(T)

"T" not always included.

When I hit Market I gave some tourists some restaurant tips. Mind you I suggested 2 places I've never eaten, but I've heard good things about. Hopefully, they had a good dinner. Man, I think I need to get out more.

Straight shot home up Sanchez to Steiner.

Total mileage 7.31

C is for Cookie

Walk #40

Todays walk had some very opposing purposes. 1) Use my coupon for See Jane Run in Noe Valley 2) try Anthony's Cookies 3) get to my favorite spinning class. I guess only the cookies don't make sense. But I earned them let me tell you . . .

I left work and went down Polk onto 10th. Now, I was only on 10th for one block and I've been down 10th before, BUT on the opposite side of the street. So I was excited to find this right at the start of my adventure:

So close, street stampers.

From 10th, I took Mission to 14th to Minna to Capp. A tip from my good friend Randy, led me to this:

The concept is there, and all the correct letters. It's just the wrong letter that got doubled.

I took Capp all the way to Cesar Chavez. Now, OG San Franciscans will know this street was not always called Cesar Chavez. And though they've done their best to change all of the signs and addresses, this still occurs:

I turned on Valencia for a quick stop at Anthony's Cookies. It's no Diddy Riese, but it smelled DIVINE in there! I bought two cookies (at $1.25 a piece) for myself. I was super excited about the white chocolate chip. All too often white chocolate chips go hand in hand with macadamia nuts which I veto. But just like Diddy, Anthony knows best and keeps those pesky nuts out. Unlike Diddy , this white chocolate chip cookie was just okay. BUT I also got a cookies and cream cookie and WHOA that was one good cookie!

And now I've got "C is for Cookie" stuck in my head . . .

The beauty of San Francisco is, once you've had your cookies, the city is going to make you work them off. I took 25th to Sanchez and stopped in to See Jane Run to get some extra running supplies. It's a way cute store with a great female empowerment story. Everyone was ridiculously friendly and helpful, without being pushy. I really liked it, but it's no Sports Basement.

Up Sanchez, I found a lot of irony in the photo to the left.

Not sure that you can tell, but that steep old street that climbing is about to cross Hill St. Awesome.

And that which goes up, must go down. . .

Sanchez Street is great because not only have we already seen it spelt Sanches, but it also joins the ranks of Anzavista with the backwards Z, not once but twice!

The best part is that these stamps are about 5 blocks from each other and one is on the west side of the street and the other is on the east side of the street. I'm so glad I crossed the street when I did so I could fully enjoy each of them.

A fun aspect of the walking game is that sometimes when you're walking along a street, you'll notice a steeper

street next to you or a cool staircase, or you might think "Hey, I bet the view is awesome from up there." But inevitably, you press on with your planned route as the crushing sensation of just how many streets you still have to go, hits you. This was how I felt a few weeks ago when I took 20th St all the way out to the bay and again how I felt when taking 19th. Luckily, every now and then, you find yourself ON those staircases and staring out at those views. As was the case today on Sanchez. Even more satisfying is walking down those staircases instead of up them!

Made it to the gym in plenty of time for spinning to kick my ass before dragging myself home.

Total mileage: 6.23

Bet you'll never guess where I went today . . .

Walk #39

I really need to start keeping track of how many of my adventures lead me to the Sports Basement. I'm pretty sure it's a lot. Without too much thought, I can think of 6 of these walks with the main purpose of getting me to SB (half to Crissy Field, half to Bryant). Crazy.

At least there was lots to look at today!

Starting with murals! This one is NOT from the Mission. I think it's called A Celebration of Love.

I love that the Golden Gate Bridge is golden. And that I assume those motorcyclists are Dykes on Bikes.

So from home, I wiggled my way to Castro, turned left and followed 19th east.

19th takes you straight through Dolores Park, which is not very exciting on a rainy day.

But on any other day it looks a lot like this Seurat-esque mural:

Hmm, I suddenly feel like stealing a Ferrari, going to a Cubs game and crashing a parade . . .

The next mural I saw was in the Mission and is not helping with the post-baseball depression. It's called

Vamos Gigantes!

Okay, you gotta check the close-ups because they're awesome:

Is it spring training yet?

And the last one. I was never one with the comic books, but I do love me some Ralph Garman, and he is all kinds of a comic book geek. So even though I wasn't listening to his HBO podcast with Kevin Smith, I still felt enough of a connection with my "friend" to snap the shot for him:

I did see more than murals today though.

I vote this to be the world's most awkward 3-point turn. Or 3,000 point turn.

I was stuck at this corner for almost 10 minutes watching this semi figure out how to get out of the precarious situation it found itself in. I was surprised when it was successful.

Nothing really exciting here, but this is a house you can see from the freeway and it stands out, obviously, cause it's colors are a little obnoxious. Anyway, fun to see the other side of it.

Total mileage: 5.51

Not technically a walk . . .

But since I found a couple erroneous street stamps, and I added half of the park, I'm including it.

I went on a training run for Disney Princess Half Marathon. It was a great run, perfect weather and I felt good. Even the curse of the park (it's all down hill to the ocean, which means it's all up hill on the return) didn't terribly bother me.

Plus I found this:

It should be singular - one chain of lakes not multiple chains of lakes.

Then I crossed the street and saw this.

Point for missing vowel. For some reason, I expected better of Golden Gate Park. It just goes to show you - no where is safe from the street stampers!

Total mileage: 8.1

Progress?

Easin' on down the roads . . .

This Walk Sponsored by the Letter 'F' (and not 'E')

Walk #38 +

Before getting to todays adventure, I need to share a brief snippet from yesterday. I walked to the gym and found this along 16th:

It was pretty awesome. With the exception of Buster (who looked wonky), it seemed to really capture the team. Even Lou Seal is hangin' in the corner. But the best part is the asterisk at the bottom:

*current world series doesn't include the following countries: afghanistan, albania, algeria . . .

:)

Anyway, for todays walk I had to go, again, to Sports Basement, but in the Presidio. So I took Ellis or Eiiis:

Okay, I recognize that IF street stamps used lower cases this could be acceptable. But as we know, streets are stamped in capital letters and clearly the stampers couldn't find the 'L'. So I took Eiiis to Franklin all the way to the Marina. I crossed Geary, or Gary, if you've lost a vowel.

Once I hit Chestnut, I had to do a little creative zigging and zagging to hit some random blocks I've missed. But the long haul of the trek was Franklin to Filbert.

Along Filbert, I crossed Webster . . . .

Okay. Seriously. What happened to the 'E'? Not a lot of vowel love today...

From Filbert I again zagged and zigged to make my way down to Marina/Crissy Field. The shopping trip was totally unsuccessful, but it turned out to be a great evening for a walk so I guess it wasn't a total wasted trip.

Total mileage: 5.84

The Sidewalk Speaks . . .

Walk #37

Holy cannoli, today involved a lot of physical activity! After my morning run, Eva and I headed over to Sports Basement where she was teaching a free yoga class. (Yay free!) The class was awesome. It was one of those classes where you feel all relaxed and zen afterwards but the next day you wake up hurting in places you didn't know existed.

After yoga, we were feeling a bit ambitious and decided to do a bit of walking. Nothing too exciting, just a bit of a basket weave between 16th and 24th. Potrero, Hampshire, York, Bryant, Florida, Alabama. As always in the Mission, beautiful murals pop up here and there...

And so do the terrifying space monkeys (11:15):

The trouble with going north/south over streets I've walked east/west is a repeat in mispelled street stamps. So while I came across 17ht and Flori'd'a, again, it was a little disappointing to not find anything new. Alas.

Near the end of my adventure, I got this message from the street. I thought it was pretty sweet.

Indeed, I do.

Total mileage: 8.67

This Walk brought to you by BBQ!

Walk #36

Seeing as how it was supposed to bucket rain all day, I didn't really plan on getting much of a walk in. But the rain never really came so I improvised todays walk. There's not much photographic proof because Section A was a basket weave through the Tenderloin: up Hyde, down Leavenworth, Jones, Taylor, Cyril Magnin, Powell, Stockton. All between Market and O'Farrell. There were tons of social services, lines for free food and a couple of drug deals. Wasn't really comfortable busting out the camera. Section B was Market to Embarcadero which was super boring because it was Sunday and EVERYTHING was closed. Then Section C was all along Folsom to 101. It was a little boring. With one major exception.

I was pretty hungry and in search of somewhere yummy to eat. I passed a ton of places that were closed, a couple of fast food chains and a ton of leather bars. As the situation grew dire, I looked up and saw this:

Yes, the infamous Big Nate's BBQ. I can't tell you the number of times I heard Mr. K go on about Big Nate's and how one can order plates and plates of meat. I think he *might* have even brought Dirt Boy and I here during our senior year, so even if I have been here before, it's been 13 years. Anyway, I was SUPER excited to stumble upon it and I went right in. The guy at the register was totally awesome and totally listened to the story of my high school band director. I ended up ordering the pulled pork with mac & cheese and sweet tea.

And all I have to say is YUM - MY!! Mr. K is just the best.

Back at the ranch . . .

I finished up Duboce, to Hermann, and then in and out of the blocks around Duboce Park, before hitting Pierce to Page and home.

Total Mileage: 10.29

Same Old Thing I Did Last Week

Walk # 35

Another gorgeous day in San Francisco, another walk through the streets. There was lots of excitement on today's adventure which started from work on Hyde, not to be confused with:

Of course, there was this:

I think I need to start keeping a tally of: Incorrect Spelling vs. Missing Letters vs. Correct Letters, Wrong Order vs. Correct Letters, Wrong Direction vs. Numbers as Letters (not including ones as I's because those are far too rampant). 1 point for Correct Letters, Wrong Order. All those consonants in the middle sort of freak me out.

Before heading down to the water, I got this awesome view (opposite from yesterday's Bay Bridge view.)

Descending Hyde Street, I witnessed one of the scariest things I've ever seen. Minding my own business waiting to cross the street, I heard honking and turned to see one car sideswipe another and I watched as the car

bounced off and FLIPPED OVER landing UPSIDE DOWN!! I stood there like an idiot for a second before I

realized I needed to be calling 911. (Shout out to the 911 operators who were super nice and the first responders who were there in less than 90 seconds. Phenomenal.) Luckily, several other citizens whose brains work faster (and apparently weren't afraid of the potential mess that could have been in the car) rushed over to help the driver who managed to get out of the car and was stumbling around. I've seen overturned cars before, but never seen one actually over turn, and I've never seen an overturned car on a residential city street! How fast was he going to flip that car over?!?! CRAZY! I tried to help the police as much as I could but they wanted details I didn't have so I left it to the driver of a third car who saw it all. (I know, I know - SUPER low class to snap the photo and even lower class to post it. BUT in my defense, there was no blood and there was no immediate danger. And you can see everyone talking to the police about what happened trying to be helpful. And the car is upside down! On Bay Street!! I know, I know, I'm a horrible person . . . )

Needless to say, the whole experience was a little jarring and certainly changed the tone of my walk. I took Hyde to Jefferson, crossed through Maritime Park, to Polk, up a wee bit to Lombard which I followed all the way to the Presidio. I wanted to bust out some side streets or more of the Marina but I lost a lot of time and it was getting dark.

I turned from Lombard to Lyon until Bay and this stunning San Francisco landmark.

I ended my adventure my wiggling my way to MJ's house for dinner.

Total mileage: 5.79

This walk brought to you by the number 20

Walk #34

It was a BEAUTIFUL day in San Francisco. It was a little warm for my taste but it was super easy to

keep in the shade, which always makes the walk more pleasant. And I knew it was going to be a good walk when no more than 1o minutes in, I found my first street stamp. Backwards letters are turning out to be more fun than misspellings...

I took Haight to Buena Vista East , down Park Hill to Roosevelt (which I've already done, darn it!) down Levant

to the Vulcan Street Stairs.

I'm so fascinated by these streets that are actually staircases. How on earth do people move into these houses?

At the same time, how fun would it be to live along a staircase! No cars going going by, sort of quiet and secluded. Very un-city like living, right in the middle of the city.

Much to my surprise the Vulcan Stairs were not the last of today's journey. From the bottom of the stairs I continued down Ord to 17th over to Douglass where I went up and down. I followed Douglas across Market, took a trip down Carson which is a dead end and turned on to 20th which I essentially followed all the way to the bay.

The best part of making a straight shot along one street is that you get to see all the creativity of the street

stampers. A phenomenon which will hence be known as the 'So Van Ness'. (See previous post, Murals in the Mission.)

For example: 20TH ST appeared quite a bit and it seems that it would be the most accurate. I get "20TH" as well. I doubt any San Franciscans would confuse the Streets and Avenues. But what about 20ST? I get that it's supposed to be 20 STREET, but

to me, this is awfully close to "2TH AVE" which I came across way back in August. And then there's the fun of spelling out "TWENTIETH" which just seems like so much work for our already lazy street stampers. So sometimes, as you can see, you get "TWENTYTH" similar to the TWELVTH from back in October. It's totally the same guy doing it, I'm sure. "Just throw on a TH, it'll be fine."

There were two pseudo interruptions to my 'straight shot' along "Twentyth St."

Up some stairs, down some stairs. On the second set (right) I came across a dad and his two sons running up and down the stairs trying to get in a bit of a work out. It was a nice idea, family exercise time, but the dad was a little intense and the younger son was crying for water. 'A' is for Awkward.

I also came a cross a woman from the neighborhood who gave me a tip about climbing over a fence and crawling under some bushes so I could get this photo of where I was headed:

I passed by Dolores park which was in full force, hula hoopers and all.

And, only in the Mission, an advert for a yoga studio.

The second interruption came in the form of Highway 101. I had to go down to 18th to cut across then come up San Bruno. After crossing the freeway, I had this awesome view of where I had come from:

I passed two community gardens along the way, turns out, there is no shortage of them in the city.

From 20th I turned onto Illinois ...

Sure sure, not misspelled, but I'm sure we can agree - that 'N' is actually a 'Z' . . .

Illinois to 16th to Bryant to 14th to Hartford, back to 20th for a photo I had missed, Eureka to 17th to Ashbury, home. Whew, I'm EXHAUSTED!

Total mileage: 11.15