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Where I’m calling from.

Some house­keep­ing notes, as the sum­mer moves into a higher gear:

I’ll be trav­el­ing a bit this month, so post­ing may be spotty. Wednes­day it’s wheels-up for the Lou (as native son Nelly calls it), city of my birth, gate­way to the west. I’m only sleep­ing there, how­ever; on Thurs­day, I’m rent­ing a car and dri­ving a few hours into cen­tral Illi­nois, where I’m lead­ing a work­shop on blog­ging for the Prairie Writ­ing School, part of the 2008 Cor­ner­stone Fes­ti­val. And what is the Cor­ner­stone Fes­ti­val, you ask? I’m told it’s the “Chris­t­ian Burn­ing Man.” Yes, I’m as intrigued as you are.

The week of July 14 will be off-and-on, too, as NN.C departs for a real fam­ily vaca­tion. I keep hop­ing we can afford Turkey one of these days, but alas, the U.S. dol­lar is now the new Russ­ian ruble, and it’s just too expen­sive. But we had a great time in NYC last year, so we told Kate to pick an Amer­i­can city she’s always wanted to visit, trust­ing she wouldn’t choose some­place like Col­orado Springs. She thought for only a minute, and said, “San Fran­cisco.” That’s my girl. So that’s where we’ll be (there, and Mon­terey). Inter­mit­tent blog­ging that week.

And with that, I real­ize I’ve left an impor­tant event off my morn­ing cal­en­dar, so best skedad­dle. What must we absolutely, pos­i­tively do when we’re in SF? I mean, besides visit City Lights Books. That’s a given.

Back in a bit.

Posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 9:34 am in Housekeeping. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.


49 responses to
“Where I’m calling from.”

  1. Lex said on July 1st, 2008 at 10:06 am

    What must you do in SF? Rent a car, take a night or two and head about an hour and a half north to stay at the Grape Leaf Inn in Healds­burg, up in Sonoma County. Visit the many sur­round­ing winer­ies. I real­ize that’s tech­ni­cally not in SF, but it’ll be worth the trip. Not so much for Kate, maybe, but Healds­burg does have a movie the­ater, or did when I was there.

  2. The Subtle Rudder said on July 1st, 2008 at 10:08 am

    As a long­time res­i­dent, my favorite things to do in SF were always neighborhood-based. I like explor­ing closer to the ground, and see­ing how peo­ple live. As a trav­eler (and guide), I usu­ally skip the cathe­drals and colos­se­ums in favor of gro­cery stores and cafes and end­less wan­der­ings.

    With that in mind, visit my old neigh­bor­hood on the bor­der of the Cas­tro and the Mis­sion. Go to Dolores Park (between 18th and 20th streets, and Dolores and Church Streets), for a view of the city as sparkling Oz, then wan­der down 18th street for some ice cream at the Bi-Rite Cream­ery, French pastry/boulangerie good­ness at Tar­tine, or a do-it-yourself pic­nic at the Bi-Rite Gro­cery: a food val­halla that I still dream about here in Lin­coln, Nebraska, as I shop the aisles of Super Tar­get. Lovely din­ners can be had at Del­fina, Range, and Bar Tartine–all within strolling dis­tance.

    You can also wan­der over to Mar­ket Street–the big diag­o­nal avenue bisect­ing the city–and catch an F Mar­ket Train down to the Ferry Build­ing. Do it on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing, and you’ll hit the farmer’s mar­ket, but there are great shops and eater­ies there any­time, and you can walk the embar­cadero along the bay, as well. I miss those views ferociously–magical!

    The F Trains run above ground, BTW, and they’re all clas­sic street­cars from cities around the world. It’s like rid­ing in a piece of Philadel­phia 1935 or Madrid 1959.

    Oh, and bring sweat­shirts! And long pants! Temps can vary from neigh­bor­hood to neigh­bor­hood, and the SF sweat­shirts you buy at the Golden Gate Bridge (because it can get polar there, espe­cially in the sum­mer) are priced high to sell to a cap­tive (and chilly) tourist pop­u­la­tion.

    Enjoy your visit!!! And email me if you have any more questions…I know the area very well, and love to help peo­ple have the per­fect SF expe­ri­ence.

  3. John said on July 1st, 2008 at 10:16 am

    If you go to Healds­burg, don’t for­get your cousins.

  4. brian stouder said on July 1st, 2008 at 10:25 am

    If I was in SF, I would seek out Nimitz’s gravesite at the Golden Gate national ceme­tery

  5. MichaelG said on July 1st, 2008 at 10:27 am

    Do tourist stuff. Ride a cable car. Have an Irish Cof­fee at the Buena Vista. Eat a great lunch at Tadich Grill or Sam’s. Have Dim Sum at that great place on Stock­ton and Pacific. Visit the Explorato­rium. Walk and walk and fol­low your nose. Union Street, Chi­na­town, the Marina. There’s some­thing neat on each block. Sur­prise your­self. Ride the 40 Stock­ton, also known as the Ori­ent Express. What I do in a strange city is look at some kind of guide book and then just walk. I also like to take a bus or street­car or what­ever to the end of the line and back. Just to see what’s there. Did I men­tion that SF is a great walk­ing town? Also a bizil­lion great places to eat. Bring some­thing warm to wear.

  6. LAMary said on July 1st, 2008 at 10:56 am

    Good art in SF this sum­mer, so check that out. There’s a Chi­huly exhibit.

    http://​www​.chi​huly​.com/

  7. coozledad said on July 1st, 2008 at 11:07 am

    The only thing I know about SF is I had an ele­men­tary school teacher who lived there awhile, and fre­quently talked about how she wanted to get back there.
    OT, but you guys may not have seen this. And you must.
    http://​www​.news​fromme​.com/​a​r​c​h​i​v​e​s​/​2​0​0​8​_​0​6​_​2​0​.​h​t​m​l​#​015428

  8. Danny said on July 1st, 2008 at 11:10 am

    I highly rec­om­mend you stay­ing at the Moun­tain Home Inn, right over the Golden Gate Bridge in Mill Val­ley. It is basi­cally sur­rounded by hik­ing trails through Muir Woods that take you down to the Pacific Ocean and has great night views of Sausal­ito and San Fran­cisco. The food is great and it is quick to get to the city too.

    Berkley would be worth vis­it­ing on the BART.

    Of course, when you are in Mon­terey, the selec­tions become eas­ier. Stay on the beach, eat a lot pf seafood. 17-Mile drive is a given. It is dis­sim­i­lar to 8-Mile.

  9. Connie said on July 1st, 2008 at 11:57 am

    We’ve had sev­eral great trips to SF. Alca­traz tour is highly rec­om­mended. As is the grey­line tour to Muir Woods, we took the option of sign­ing off the tour in Sausal­ito and tak­ing the ferry back across the bay.

    Scoma’s on Pier 47 for great seafood. And China Town is fun, get out of the touristy part into the side streets to see the amaz­ing gro­cery stores. What is that stuff?

    And every kid should get that Alca­traz t-shirt that says: You are enti­tled to food, shel­ter, and med­ical care. Every­thing else is a priv­i­lege.

    A few days after your depar­ture I will be head­ing up to Glen Lake/Sleeping Bear for a week. Aaah.

  10. beb said on July 1st, 2008 at 12:04 pm

    Are they still doingthe Dashiel Ham­mett walk­ing tours? That would be inter­est­ing.

  11. colleen said on July 1st, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    My sis­ter lives there, and is a foodie, so if you want any rec­om­men­da­tions from her, let me know.

  12. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 1st, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    At Cor­ner­stone, make sure to say “hi” to Michael Spencer, aka “Inter­net Monk,” whose site http://​www​.inter​net​monk​.com is turn­ing this sum­mer into http://​jesusshaped​.word​press​.com/ (he’s still post­ing on both, at least for the sum­mer); he’s the con­vener of the group blog “Boar’s Head Tav­ern” http://​www​.boarshead​tav​ern​.com and all are on my book­mark bar for Fire­fox right next to this link, so in my head you’re all neigh­bors. Michael is doing some kind of set of pro­grams (not just ser­mons) at Cor­nern­stone this next week.

    I’m delighted to hear you’re going to punch up the writ­ing qual­ity of the Chris­t­ian blo­gos­phere — it could use a bit more bite and humor. Never been to Cor­ner­stone, but often thought about it . . . as a reg­u­lar church and Scout camp leader, it’s hard to fit that into a sum­mer.

  13. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 1st, 2008 at 12:19 pm

    Whoa. Nancy, i went to see when Michael was there (he’s this Thurs­day, Fri­day, and Sat­ur­day), and found this — http://​www​.cor​ner​stone​fes​ti​val​.com/​c​s​t​o​n​e​X​c​h​a​n​g​e​/​2​0​0​8​/​s​p​e​a​k​e​r​s.html

    You are listed right next to Shane Clai­borne. Do you real­ize how evan­gel­i­cally cool that makes you? Yes, you siz­zle when touched with an index fin­ger.

    Coulda been there, but no — i’m off to spend the week with a herd of 3-4-5th graders in the great out­doors mak­ing smudgie pies over a fire. Shane would at least appre­ci­ate that we’re form­ing inten­tional Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity, even if it’s only for a week.

  14. leslie said on July 1st, 2008 at 12:21 pm

    Frida Kahlo is at SF MOMA.
    Cal­i­for­nia Cool at the Oak­land Museum.
    Rosen­blum Cel­lars in Alameda for the best zin ever.
    Santa Cruz Beach Board­walk for an old-fashioned roller coaster ride.

  15. Julie Robinson said on July 1st, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    Oooh! Chi­huly!! Please do that one and take lots of pix to post. His works are cre­ative, won­drous and whim­si­cal. He had an exhibit a few years ago at the Chicago Botan­ni­cal Gar­dens that still makes me smile in remem­brance. It was a bit Seussi­cal with­out try­ing too hard.

    Our vaca­tion this year went away with my job, which I had to give up to care for my sis­ter. We’re hop­ing to man­age a week­end in Chicago.

  16. velvet goldmine said on July 1st, 2008 at 12:53 pm

    When my hus­band and I went there about 20 years ago, we went to a spec­tac­u­lar break­fast place high on a cliff, with seals frol­ick­ing down below. The only trou­ble was, the restaurant’s gim­mick turned out to be an omelette-only menu. My hus­band is an extreme egg-phobe, so we left. He’s still kick­ing him­self. “I could’ve just had toast!” 20 years of this.

  17. john c said on July 1st, 2008 at 1:00 pm

    Muir Woods is a must. I would also try and rent bikes and ride across the Golden Gate Bridge.
    I always rec­om­mend Alca­traz, because it’s great and it’s also the kind of thing lots of folks would dis­miss out of hand as too touristy. The boat ride alone is worth it. And the tour itself is excel­lent. Plus, if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll have a tour guide like Phil Hart­man:
    http://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​F​m​F​V​e​eLL01c
    If that link doesn’t work, go to You Tube and search for “Phil Hart­man, Alca­traz tour guide.” You won’t be dis­ap­pointed. The only prob­lem is the clip misses the moment a bit before this speech where he intruduces him­self with a dead­pan: “Hello every­one. My names is John John­son, but most of my friends call me Vickie.”

  18. Tim S. said on July 1st, 2008 at 1:01 pm

    What to do in SF: Walk, and eat. As some of the other com­menters men­tioned, it’s a great walk­ing town. It’s a great eat­ing town, too. There are great places all over–see our restau­rant review site for some SF/Silicon Val­ley loca­tions we like, or check out Jat­bar for hid­den gems. Take in a ball­game at AT&T Park–beautiful place to see base­ball.

    And if you’re there over July 20, come by Golden Gate Park and wave to us in the AIDS Walk SF.

  19. Peter said on July 1st, 2008 at 1:25 pm

    We did the Route 1 thing last year, and what I would rec­om­mend, in addi­tion to the above fine posts:

    1. I don’t know the name, but there’s a bike rental place that will let you bike over the bridge and then take a ferry back from Sausal­ito – uber cool!

    2. If your daugh­ter really likes the cable cars, the cen­tral machine build­ing is open to the pub­lic (and is on the cable car route, so it’s not out of the way) and has cool dis­plays about cable cars, although I think I wound up know­ing less about the cable cars after I went through that place.

    3. The old ferry ter­mi­nal is now a really cool mar­ket (it was fea­tured in the Times).

    4. In Mon­terey, make sure you get to the Aquar­ium early. We got there right after it opened and had to wait 30 min­utes to get in, and when we left the line went to the hori­zon. It’s a great place, but it’s not worth wait­ing more than 30 min­utes to get in.

    5. Sure, it’s touristy, but it’s worth going to Alca­traz. You have to order tick­ets way in advance, how­ever. When it was time for our boat to go it was really rain­ing, but I think that only added to the atmos­phere.

  20. kayak woman said on July 1st, 2008 at 1:50 pm

    I am so envi­ous! I have been to San Fran­cisco exactly once, for five days, and my favorite thing to do out there is spend time with my daugh­ter, who grew up way too fast, grad­u­ated from col­lege and moved out there. But that doesn’t help you much.

    I’m not much of a tourist but I am a walker and I will sec­ond those who sug­gest just walk­ing around the neigh­bor­hoods, that’s what I enjoyed the most, along with a trip to the Pt. Reyes National Seashore (also a lot of walk­ing). But Kate will prob­a­bly want to do more than walk around and you’ve got­ten a lot of great sug­ges­tions. Have a won­der­ful time!

    This sum­mer, I’m lim­ited to maybe a week of slug­ging around on my family’s L. Supe­rior beach. Not that I can com­plain.

  21. A Riley said on July 1st, 2008 at 2:08 pm

    I sec­ond the vote for the fer­ry­boat ride & lunch at the ferry ter­mi­nal. We started across the bay in Marin, looked at the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Marin County Civic Cen­ter build­ing (fas­ci­nat­ing!) and took the ferry from Lark­spur into the city for lunch on the water-side ter­race of the ferry ter­mi­nal – and then a drink on the city-side ter­race of the ferry ter­mi­nal. It was *won­der­ful!*

  22. Liz said on July 1st, 2008 at 2:13 pm

    My mom posted just above (kayak woman) – for a kid, and if the weather is only so-so, check out the Explorato­rium or Zeum. The SF MoMA also has great pro­grams for kids and there is a Frida Kahlo exhibit there right now. Also, the Pre­sidio is nice for nature-in-the-city. Bur­ri­tos in the Mis­sion are always a good bet… that’s my neigh­bor­hood, it’s full of beau­ti­ful murals if you just want to walk around. Don’t count out the East Bay either, it’s fun to take a ferry from Embar­cadero to Jack Lon­don Square in Oak­land and see that side of the Bay. You can also do the same to Sausal­ito.

  23. caliban said on July 1st, 2008 at 2:19 pm

    City Lights Book­store? Yeah, sort of. Lawr­ernce Fer­linghetti? Bukowski with a wryly arched pinkie avoid­ing the shift key. Aquar­ius Records? Absolutely. I’ve been to San Fran­cis­coand actu­ally rode the ele­va­tor in the Fran­cis with Edward G. Robin­son. A gen­tle­man, and a true star.

    http://​www​.aquar​ius​records​.org/

    And Kayak Woman. At least nobody dumped jet fuel in your lake. We live in fear that some­thing like that might hap­pen in Port Royal Sound, what with the marines at Par­ris Island. We invade their shores occa­sion­ally by kayak, and always get off with stern warn­ings.

  24. Dorothy said on July 1st, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    My old­est sis­ter used to travel a good bit in her job many moons ago, and she said SF will always be her very favorite city. Not sure why, but with rec­om­men­da­tions like that, and the ones above, you’re sure to have a mem­o­rable trip! Have fun.

    My good news that I’d like to share with y’all is that we FINALLY sold our house! It went on the mar­ket on 5/17/07 and this past week­end it sold. And best of all, it’s a cash offer. We’re pro­ceed­ing with plans to build a place on a lovely piece of land here in Knox County, Ohio. I’ll pray for patience but I think it will come to me eas­ily. We have an excel­lent builder (my friend Mary’s hus­band) and I’ve already started pick­ing out fix­tures and cab­i­nets for the kitchen. And we haven’t even pur­chased the land yet…

  25. brian stouder said on July 1st, 2008 at 2:38 pm

    Con­grat­u­la­tions, Dorothy!

    That must be a tremen­dous relief.

  26. John said on July 1st, 2008 at 2:42 pm

    Did you resort to the upside down St. Joseph statue?

  27. Connie said on July 1st, 2008 at 2:49 pm

    Best night view: The rooftop restau­rant at the Hyatt just off Union Square. Once the din­ner hour is over you can get great seats with a great view, and have a drink.

  28. kayak woman said on July 1st, 2008 at 2:49 pm

    Hmm, jet fuel in L. Supe­rior? Prob­a­bly not, at least not a whole lot. But all the years of B52s and other assorted jets out of Kinch­e­loe fly­ing low over our woods prob­a­bly led to my many years of plane crash in the bay night­mares. Even­tu­ally a real estate devel­oper came along and grabbed some of our land (long story) and now con­dos and McMan­sions invade my sleep instead.

  29. caliban said on July 1st, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    Lom­bard Street isn’t sup­posed to be, but for the non-jaded tourist, it is pretty amaz­ing. In a day and age when peo­ple drive Rovers half a mile an hour over speed bumps, like those Olive Oil mus­cles will take out the tranny, the ulti­mate is worth dri­ving, or bik­ing, down. And the land­scap­ing is excep­tional.

    I think it’s extremely funny that the Wikipedia entry for Lom­bard Street describes it as ‘east-west’. Mostly, it is, but sorry, its most famous stretch throws passes to itself like Crazy Legs Hirsch, who shoulda played for the Nin­ers. Or at least Vince Lombard-i.

  30. moe99 said on July 1st, 2008 at 3:28 pm

    I watched a jet dump its fuel over Puget Sound when I was a staff attor­ney for the Seat­tle Regional office of the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion. It mostly evap­o­rates, iirc. The jet was in trou­ble and com­ing in for a seri­ous land­ing and they didn’t want the fuel on board for obvi­ous rea­sons. So might want to recheck your sources there for the con­cern.

  31. alex said on July 1st, 2008 at 3:33 pm

    Not sure of all the best places to go — haven’t been there since 1994 — but you sure picked the best time of year to go, at least accord­ing to my par­ents, who’ll be there at the same time as they are every year. They stay with some old friends in Marin County and take day trips all over the place.

    If you visit the Lesser Lights book­store (or what­ever the hell the gay one is called) be sure to say hey to my old friend and failed pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Joan Jett Blakk if she’s still work­ing there.

  32. caliban said on July 1st, 2008 at 3:41 pm

    I’ve got no prob­lem at all with dump­ing fuel if it saves pas­sen­gers lives. I’d imag­ine the eco­log­i­cal dam­age of the plane’s crash­ing for hav­ing the fuel bur­den would be a whole lot worse. I sup­pose, at any given moment, some­body is per­form­ing excre­tory func­tions in most of the bod­ies of water on the face of the earth. Doesn’t mean I have to like the idea.

  33. moe99 said on July 1st, 2008 at 4:11 pm

    If jet fuel evap­o­rates in the air, it doesn’t get into the water–at best 2%

    http://​www​.chicagotri​bune​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​l​o​c​a​l​/​c​h​i​-​o​h​a​r​e​-​e​m​e​r​g​e​n​c​y​-​l​a​n​d​i​n​g​j​u​l​0​1​,​0​,​5​1​8​7​0​0​4​.​s​t​o​r​y​?​t​r​a​ck=rss

  34. Dexter said on July 1st, 2008 at 4:19 pm

    So there you have it. All the things I would have men­tioned already have been, so I will rank them as I would in mak­ing a count­down must-do-must see list.
    1) This is a pack­age, Alca­traz, Muir Woods, Sausal­ito

    2) Chi­na­town, and the Pow­ell & Mar­ket cable car that runs down to Fisherman’s Wharf (Ghi­radelli Square is really expen­sive now…a mini-mall)

    3) Japan­ese Tea Gar­dens and San Fran­cisco Insti­tute of Art, in and near Golden Gate Park. Be care­ful if you stroll around in the wilds of Golden Gate Park…a friend says the wise avoid that these days…crime, don­cha know….and it’s easy to get to the Pacific Ocean beach from Golden Gate Park. Every time I was there it was nasty, rainy, cold…and a bleak beach , not an attrac­tion at all…avoid it.

    4) Coit Tower and of course as Cal­iban wrote, Lom­bard Street…it’s beau­ti­ful, the gar­den­ers keep it that way…outstanding!

    5) And of course, you sim­ply MUST acquire a bicy­cle and ride across that damn famous bridge and give us a full report!

    I lived in Mon­terey as a young man and it’s pretty lame…just fol­low the guide books. Can­nery Row is just an expen­sive col­lec­tion of bou­tiques these days…but a walk-through of the place is cool, espe­cially if you know Stein­beck, and the story of Doc and all that went on there in Steinbeck’s day…then of course, if you love Stein­beck, a quick trip along the road­ways through the let­tuce fields over to Sali­nas for the Stein­beck Museum.

    OK…pick and choose, and after you are aquarium’d out, be sure and spend at least two hours at my favorite loca­tion in that area, Carmel Beach, down the hill from Carmel. There is also Carmel Val­ley, but you prob­a­bly will have no inter­est in going there.

    Warn­ing: Since you are going to have your daugh­ter along, it might be wise to Google for nud­ist beaches along the Cal-coast…there are many of them, and you wouldn’t want to deal with all that with a kid along…I acci­den­tally wan­dered into a large group of nud­ists at Gar­ra­p­ato Beach once or three times…this was years ago and they are still there…but OMG what a BEAUTIFUL lit­tle beach!

  35. colleen said on July 1st, 2008 at 4:54 pm

    Ooo. If you can, drive thru The Pre­sidio.

  36. alex said on July 1st, 2008 at 4:56 pm

    I remem­ber hap­pen­ing upon my first nude beach — on the Mon­terey Penin­sula in 1976 when I was 13. Not sure whether it was offi­cially nude, but the peo­ple frol­ick­ing there obvi­ously didn’t seem to care.

    Also remem­ber a hip­pie restau­rant called the Two-Ball Inn, mem­o­rable for the women with leg and armpit hair like I’d never seen before. (Again, this was 1976). This was in a hip­pie town in Marin County — for­get­ting the name, but I under­stand these days the locals keep tak­ing down road signs to pre­vent tourists from find­ing it.

    Kate’ll get an eye­ful no mat­ter where you take her. 1976 was also my first expo­sure to drag queens and other provo­ca­teurs on the streets. For all I know maybe SF’s been all Dis­ney­fied like Chicago and New York over then last ten to fif­teen years and the shock-value mer­ry­mak­ers have moved on to more afford­able envi­rons, but I sure hope not.

  37. KarenNM said on July 1st, 2008 at 5:18 pm

    I lived in the Bay Area for 10 years (moved away two years ago to Port­land) and play­ing tour guide was my absolute favorite thing! Let me offer some more details on some of the sug­ges­tions above:
    1. Get your Mon­terey Bay Aquar­ium tick­ets on-line, and then you can get in the door very quickly. You’ll still want to arrive early, because it gets crowded.
    2. From the Aquar­ium, head south and travel down 17-mile drive (the entrance is truly just down the street from the Aquar­ium). The views of the coast and the homes are breath­tak­ing, and you can fin­ish up with some window-shopping on Ocean Avenue in Carmel, where the street ends into a beach that runs along the shore below Peb­ble Beach.
    3. The Dim Sum place that was men­tioned on Stock­ton and Pacific is prob­a­bly New Asia. YUM – my favorite place for dim sum in SF. Another good spot is Yank Sing, near the Ferry Build­ing. Walk­ing through Chi­na­town is a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence.
    4. If you can go to the Ferry Build­ing on Mar­ket on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing, do it for all the amaz­ing fresh pro­duce and food stands. If you can’t get there on a Sat­ur­day it’s still worth going – the per­ma­nent food stalls inside are fun, and you can sit on the back dock, have a drink and watch the boats go by.
    5. The Alca­traz tour is great, but again, get your tick­ets on-line in advance. I can’t tell you how many bummed-out tourists I saw that went to the day-of win­dow only to learn that ALL that day’s tours were sold out.
    6. If you want to do some­thing between SF and Mon­terey, stop at the Stan­ford cam­pus in Palo Alto (my for­mer home, even if it was just rent­ing an apart­ment on-campus). The cam­pus is gor­geous and they do great student-led walk­ing tours.
    7. If the Giants are home, go to a ball­game! The team’s not so good this year, so tick­ets may be eas­ier to come by, and the park is worth the visit. Be sure to have the Gar­lic Fries from Gor­don Bierch, and a Cha-Cha bowl at the ven­dor in cen­ter field.
    That’s prob­a­bly more than enough, but if you want more details feel free to drop me an email. After all the enjoy­ment I’ve had read­ing your work here, offer­ing some infor­ma­tion in return is the least I can do!

  38. Jenine said on July 1st, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    I hope you’ll enjoy all the NoCal good­ness on your trip. I lived in SF and then Oak­land for about ten years. I would rec­om­mend the SF Moma and the Yerba Buena park in front of it, down­town. Def­i­nitely spend some time look­ing at the Bay, either over by the Ferry Bldg or from the ball­park.

    I love The Sub­tle Rudder’s sug­ges­tions. Dolores Park and its Muni train stop have a won­der­ful view.

    Have you folks who rec­om­mended bike rid­ing across the GG bridge actu­ally done it? It seems like it would be awfully windy and noisy. And I think it would inflame my fear of heights. But maybe I’m being a wet blan­ket.

  39. caliban said on July 1st, 2008 at 6:58 pm

    Watch­ing the Dodgers beat the Giants would be good, but they don’t play at Can­dle­stick any­more, and juan Marichal would be incar­cer­ated.

    I rode a bike over the bridge, Jen­nie. I don’t often admit it, but heights spook me, mostly when peo­ple in movies are threat­ened. In real life, and what seems a for­mer exis­tence, I was a com­pet­i­tive diver and threw ridicu­lous tricks off 10 meter plat­forms, occa­sion­ally with very bad results in train­ing. Pres­sure blis­ters and welts.

    Water is hard as con­crete when you’re trav­el­ing per sec­ond, per sec­ond. Sui­cide by bridge is undoubt­edly pos­si­ble, but don’t you have to have the tal­ent to hit just right? Scari­est bridge is over the Savan­nah River. (I love Boston, and I think bridges amd not mean­ing­less McDon­alds arches are architecture’s crown­ing achiements, but why did they just copy the design?)

    The GW is spec­tac­u­larly windy, all the time, and when they put up ‘windy’ signs, have to think they mean busi­ness. Drove over in a Wag­oneer tow­ing an 18-foot trailer with a Suzuki 750 strapped in. HAIR-RAISING. The most beau­ti­ful bridge ever built is the Tap­pan Zee (and the Brook­lyn a close sec­ond.)

    Of all the despi­ca­ble horsecrap foisted on gullible Amer­i­cans by W, the guy that was going to burn down th Brook­lyn Bridge in plain sight with an acety­lene torch is prob­a­bly the most ludi­crous. The cables are 16 inches thick and each con­tains 19 strands, con­tain­ing 2381 wires at a total of 21,432 wires in each cable. Good luck wacko trucker from Toledo. There are actu­ally peo­ple in the Nunined States (That’s actu­ally how the Ninny in Chief pro­nounces it) that believe this sort of stu­pid­ity, and they believe W served and John Kerry shot him­self to get a Pur­ple Heart.

    Gates of Eden, y’all.

  40. Connie said on July 1st, 2008 at 8:22 pm

    Oh yes, Yank Sing, most I’ve ever spent on Dim Sum, and well worth it. There are a cou­ple of loca­tions. Ghi­radelli Square, the Ghi­radelli Ice Cream Shop is a nice place to take a break. And my mis­take, the hotel with the great view bar is the Hilton.

    On a trip for my con­fer­ence some years ago…..my hus­band got up one morn­ing, from our hotel near Union Sq. he walked through Chi­na­town, up and over Nob Hill and on down to the Golden Gate bridge. He walked across the bridge, then con­tin­ued five miles on down the road to Sausal­ito, where he took the ferry back, walked over Nob Hill the other way, and arrived back at our hotel shortly after I did, around 5.

    Con­grat­u­la­tions on the house sale Dorothy. Which reminds me. There is a 4 sto­ries high end fab­ric shop right at Union Square which is to die for. Just look­ing, noth­ing here I can afford. And take the Bart to down­town Berke­ley. Stone Moun­tain and Daugh­ter – nat­ural fab­rics only in a ware house set­ting – is barely a block from the stop. And Chez Panisse is easy walk­ing dis­tance in the other direc­tion.

  41. merrill said on July 1st, 2008 at 10:41 pm

    Two won­der­ful restau­rants we found on a trip to SF last year:

    Tommaso’s Pizza in North Beach. Fab­u­lous, cheap and a won­der­ful atmos­phere. Near City Lights, as I recall.

    Tay­lor Street Cof­fee Shop in the Ten­der­loin. Great, cheap break­fasts with lots of fresh fruit.

    And all kids, young and old, must go to the Explorato­rium.

    Have fun!

  42. caliban said on July 1st, 2008 at 10:48 pm

    San Fram­cisco in the movies:

    http://​www​.slate​.com/​i​d​/​2​1​9​3​9​5​1​?​w​p​i​s​r​c​=​n​e​w​s​letter

    I think Clint is bril­liant. I think he’s often spo­ken truth to power he doesn’t trust as far as Shane could throw ‘em. Joey Wales would spit tobacco juice on W’s faux cow­boy boots. I also fig­ure he’d know a Swift Boat LT from some fullof­shit Repub­li­can oper­a­tive.

    I don’t think he believes peo­ple of color are evil or that bona fide wack jobs like Elmer Fudd Scalia should be walk­ing around with assault weapons. I think he’s made some great movies. “A Per­fect World” was among them.

  43. basset said on July 1st, 2008 at 10:56 pm

    Never been there, and don’t care to go. I have a real low tol­er­ance for con­de­scen­sion, and in my expe­ri­ence San Fran­cisco res­i­dents are sec­ond only to New York­ers in their con­vic­tion that their city is the cen­ter of the civ­i­lized world… and their will­ing­ness to share that with you whether you want to hear it or not.

  44. Catherine said on July 1st, 2008 at 11:30 pm

    Mostly sec­ond­ing here, but: The pil­grim­mage to Chez Panisse… and inter­est­ing for Kate to see Berke­ley & envi­rons. SF MOMA for the archi­tec­ture as well as the art. Last but not least, sun­set on the beach in Carmel. The light, the light! (try­ing not to sound like Thomas Kinkade)

  45. Catherine said on July 2nd, 2008 at 12:25 am

    Oh, and a good book for Kate: There’s an Amer­i­can Girl set in SF. The 70s girl… can’t think of her name… her best friend is of Chi­nese descent.

  46. Dexter said on July 2nd, 2008 at 1:32 am

    A video…crossing over to Marin County on two wheels

  47. Terry WAlter said on July 2nd, 2008 at 2:10 am

    Cornerstone- a Detroit housewife-what in the name of fem­i­nism is going on? Still have time to can­cel your trip? And aren’t they aware that your blog fre­quently con­tains words that, as Simon & Gar­funkel would say, are never heard in the Bible.

  48. Connie said on July 2nd, 2008 at 6:05 am

    I once got to go to a pri­vate party at the SF MOMA. Like the NYC MOMA, I got to see my kitchen chairs on dis­play.

    Eames molded fiber­glass, res­cued after 30 plus years in my father’s wait­ing room.

  49. Cathy D. said on July 3rd, 2008 at 10:13 am

    Nancy, are you a Ray Carver fan too?

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