High Enough for Clouds
Since I didn't have much in the way of plans this weekend, I resolved that I should go out and do something new on at least one day this week. What I decided was to drive out to the ocean and up Route 1 into San Francisco, and there hit a few comic book and used book stores, and generally try to familiarize myself with the city a little more.
I got on the road around 1 pm, a little later than hoped, but then, I always lie in bed until after 10 am listening to the morning NPR programs, especially Car Talk. I got lucky when I got to the ocean: It was sunny. This is pretty rare; usually it's cloudy, if not downright foggy.
I drove past Half Moon Bay towards Moss Beach, since I hoped to catch the end of low tide at the tide pools in Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. Along the way I stopped at a fruit & vegetable stand and bought some strawberries, pistachioes, and some flavored honey sticks. (Mmmm...) I also drove out a couple of roads to see if I could get to the ocean and see anything interesting. There's a road that drives out to the point of the peninsula that forms Half Moon Bay, and since the point is up on a hill, it looked like it would have a good view. Sadly, it seems to be an Air Force station, and there was a stern sign about not entering the base without the permission of the commander. Too bad.
Unfortunately, the tide seems to come in fast at Moss Beach; less than 2 hours after low tide, and the rocks were completely covered. Nuts. The sun had also gone away. But I did do a little walking along the beach and took some photos of the cliffs overlooking the ocean, as well as the largish waves coming in. There were birds both large and small flying around; I saw three birds - which looks slightly sea gull-like, but seemed a little less, uh, messy - flying along parallel to the waves. I tried to get a shot of them, but they flew into the sky before I was ready.
There's supposed to be a trail which goes along the bluffs, but it looks like the bridge going across a gorge to the bluffs has been dismantled. And the visitors center for Moss Beach isn't open on the weekends, so I couldn't find out what the deal is. Maybe I'll call 'em during the week, but it would be nice to walk along those bluffs and see the sights.
A lot of the coastal rock has a rather interesting property: It tends to fragment in rough squares and rectangles. So if you look close at a bluff, you can see lots of little cubes and rectangles sticking out from where the bluff was caused by erosion or a human cut. I'm sure this is a property of this type of rock - whatever it is - but I don't know anything about it. It's not something I've ever seen anywhere else. I poked at a little piece of bluff and the small fragments that splintered off (we're taking really small here, smaller than a fingernail, though the pattern is repeated at larger scales) were these little cubes. Weird. And cool.
I blew the turn onto Skyline Drive (Route 35), but managed with some effort to get back on (fricking side streets don't have any signs; you'd think no one ever wanted to turn around on a freeway). Even this far north, Skyline gets pretty far up, and I realized that I was driving through some low-hanging clouds. It's quite cool: You can see wisps of water vapor drifting across the highway, probably at 10 or 20 miles an hour. I know the San Francisco residents call it fog, but really, at that altitude it's clouds. Driving through clouds. Where else in the country can you do that? Nowhere I've lived before.
I had a list of stores to visit in SF, but by this time it was after 3 pm, so I knew I'd only get to some of them. I decided on the comic book stores, to feed my hobby, and leave the book stores for later. Most of the comics stores in the city are located south of the Golden Gate Park, so that's mostly where I drove around. It's a hilly part of the city (yes, there are some parts that are not so hilly), and is very residential, with business districts popping up every few blocks. All the houses have that typical San Francisco look: Built right next to each other with no space in between, in a variety of colors (while, tan, pink, blue, green, red... pretty much anything but black), with a garage on the first floor and the house above it. It looks kind of neat, but I was thinking that I might find it a little depressing: Everything's all paved over, and there's not much greenery.
So I hit a few comics stores and actually found some stuff on my want list. I also learned that Alan Moore - author of Watchmen, Swamp Thing, and various other books - wrote about 14 issues of WildC.A.T.S. a few years ago, and I picked up half of the run. (I read 'em later. They're certainly in keeping with his 90s interest in mainstream but intelligent superhero comics, but not as good as, say, his Supreme run.)
At one point I was trying to find a parking space near one store, and driving around the block. These are large blocks. I was at the top of a hill trying to head back to the main street when I looked over at a couple standing in a garage. "Hmm," I thought to myself, "that looks something like Rollie" - one of my gaming buddies who lives in the city - "although he usually has his hair in a pony tail. And, that woman looks like his wife Kelly." I backed up the car, honked, and waved to them. It was them! I pulled over and parked in front of their house and said, "Believe it or not, I was just randomly driving by... you live here?" Yep, they live there. Who'd've figured? Of all the houses in the city to drive past... and I knew nothing about where in the city they lived.
So we chatted for a while, and then they had to go prepare for guests. But it was cool. I also drove past the San Francisco zoo and resolved to go there the next time I go to the city.
It eventually got to be nearly 7 pm, and I'd hit all the comics shops I wanted to hit, and it was getting dark (and cloudy, er, foggy), so I found my way to the freeway and headed south.
A long day. I don't know if I feel that I know the city any better. I'm starting to think that the basic issue is that I'm used to college atmospheres, and that's why I like Palo Alto and Menlo Park, with the Stanford element. San Francisco is a big, differentiated city, and I haven't found any specific spots I'd like to hang out in. You really have to drive to get anywhere out here. That's kind of depressing.
I hate urban sprawl.
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