Walking Adventures in The City: 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: