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

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

Everyone Loves A Parade

Walk #33

Today was the victory parade for our World Series Champion Giants!

I took Haight to Broderick to Waller to Buchanan to Fell to Market (to hit some random blocks I had missed) and met up with Jess at her office downtown. We had a bird's eye view of the parade:

It was hard to see a lot of the guys but it was a pretty spectacular place to watch the festivities without being over crowded. And we probably saw way more than the folks on the street. (Though all the people that climbed ON TOP OF THE BUS probably had the best views.)

After lunch I took a stroll on 2nd St down from Market. And it looks like the San Francisco Street Stampers have struck again!

On first glance, it looks as though the 'S' is backwards.

But on closer inspection, I think it's an '8' that they creatively altered. Good effort if they were missing the 'S' stamp, but backwards execution.

And speaking of backwards....

Jessamyn tipped me off to this and I have NO idea what the hell is happening here.

Even reversing it doesn't really help with its awkwardness.

Seriously, what is THAT? At least the letters are in the correct order . . . .

I stopped by AT&T Park to soak up some more orange and black ambiance and made my way along King to 5th then Berry, 7th to Hopper, Wisconsin to 16th to Carolina, where I found the home of the "Cable Cars" that had been featured in the parade!

From there, I took 15th St as far home as I could and I found a lot of awesomeness along the way.

Had to take a brief detour from Potrero to 16th and it was super fun that I did.

First, I passed by the site of the Giants original playing field, Seals Stadium.

They played here for the first couple of seasons after they arrived from New York while they waited for Candlestick to be built. Fun fact: the Giants first game in San Francisco was against none other then the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Giants won 8-0. :)

Shortly after the move to Candlestick, Seals Stadium was demolished. Now there's a mini mall here. Which in and of itself is not exciting, but Sports Basement is across the street. Very exciting. I resisted the urge to go in. I can never get out of that place without spending crazy amounts of money.

Anyway . . . .

Secondly, before making my way back onto 15th from Harrison I found this. So close . . . .

Last one for today. When I reached Van Ness (or So Van Ness) I came across this. It's a little faded, but we definitely have some backwardsness happening again. N's and S's are hard.

And finally, I passed an Episcopalian Church. The back side of which was along an alley. In the Mission, you know what that means: mural time!

The lighting sucked but you can still see the general concept.

San Francisco is so awesome.

I continued on until 15th ended. I circled around Buena Vista Park and ended where I began.

Total mileage: 9.42

And, because I can't resist, a final treasure from the San Francisco Giants 2010 post season. *love*

Hmmmm Baby!! World Series Champs!!

Go Giants!

Walking has been on the back burner for the last few weeks due to the World Series.

Of course, my dad and I walked to Game 2 at AT&T Park . . .

(psst. remember when I thought that game in September would be the last one I would go to this year? turns out anything is possible! lesson of the post season: don't stop believing!)

And then I walked to a friends house to watch Game 3 and saw this along Haight St . . . .

(I have seen it before, it just hasn't made the blog yet. It's supposed to be Broderick.)

And lastly, I walked to Green Sports Bar to watch Game 5 . . .

I walked along Gough, or Gouh, for just a short 2.05 mile jaunt. Seen here:

World Series 2010 end result: Giants 4 Texas 1

Sunset & Parkside #1

Walk #30

New walking rule. In addition to not walking new routes on the way to work, and always carrying cash, I will ALWAYS carry a rain coat. Luckily, it only began to rain a few blocks from the zoo and the end of my walk, but it could've been much worse.

I started down Lincoln and was headed to the San Francisco Zoo where I did not go, but rather picked up Muni to get downtown and watch (read: be disappointed by) some Giant baseball.

Along Lincoln, I found this which at first glance is fine. But check out the '6'

It's actually the "8" but with a little creative design. This is one of the street stampers better efforts. Especially given that only I, in all of my street stamp OCDness, would notice.

This however is pretty blatant:

As I was decked out in orange, I was happy to find a lot of these along the way.

Hmmmmmm Baby!

Total mileage: 4.49

$2 Tuesday

Walk #29

I had some time to kill before meeting MJ and Randy at the City Tavern for $2 Tuesday. So I decided to take Larkin Street all the way out to the Wharf before crossing to the Marina.

I was quite glad it wasn't as much of a hike as I had anticipated. There were some stairs down at the end, but even they weren't too steep or too bad. The weather was perfect and the view was great. What more could a girl ask for?

Once I hit Chestnut Street I decided to bust out a few blocks between Bay and Chestnut, Van Ness and Laguna. All in all it was highly uneventful, though with my Matt Cain t-shirt on I got interrupted a lot and asked for the score of the game. Luckily I knew, 3 - 0 Giants!

After a super cheap night out, hooray for $2 beers and chicken tenders!, I choose Pierce St. to lead me home. As I crossed Union I found this creative effort by the street stampers:

I suppose if you'd lost the 'N' this would be the best way to go. Unless they meant Uivioiv Street. Then my bad. You guys are good.

I ran into a lot of parks on Pierce Street and had to make a few detours. But for the most part it was a straight shot. Then a few blocks from home, I had to ponder my whole plan and existance as this message was left waiting for me:

Total Mileage: 7.54

Take me out to the ball game . . .

Walk #20

After happy hour(s) at Toad Hall, I decided to take advantage of today's dynamic deal and get myself a cheap ticket to what looks to be my last Giants game of the season. *tear*

The walking options were plentiful but I decided to keep it as simple as possible. I walked all the way down 18th street from Castro to the Bay, then

up 3rd to AT&T. Super straight forward and it proved to be a genius plan. First, there was no line at Bi-Rite, I repeat NO LINE AT BI-RITE! On a beautiful Tuesday afternoon! Crazy. I of course got myself some white chocolate blackberry. Yummy looking, huh?

Then I got to cross two freeways! The first by pedestrian footbridge, which seriously terrified me, the second

a traffic ramp, which was not nearly as scary.

Funnily, there is something about me that is intrinsically a Peninsula girl , it was so awkward that 101 was west of 280. I kept thinking the map was lying to me. Guess I'm not quite a city girl yet.

101 280

Luckily, this walk was all about my favorite city workers: the Street Cement Stampers!

First, at 18th and SancheZ . . . .

Then, I thought I was walking on 18th street. Am I really 10 blocks off track and didn't realize it?

Is 'Florida' a little like 'Toys R Us'? Backwards letters are fun for kids of all ages! And it least it got this stuck in my head, which always makes me happy. Boots with the fur . . .

Sadly, I was late to the game, it's almost like I was a Dodger fan - yucka. But the view was nice coming to the park from the south.

Total Mileage: 3.77