Day 108: Quake

Location: Moraga, CA

We drove into the city today for some sightseeing.  The temperature was nice and cool, so we decided to bring Data along.

Our first mission was to find some sort of breakfast.  Since we didn’t get into the city until about 1 p.m., most of the small cafes were either closed or no longer serving breakfast.  We decided to go back to Lori’s Diner, but this time we went to the Ghirardelli Square location near Fisherman’s Wharf.  Unlike the downtown location, the one we went to was no longer serving breakfast, so we settled for grilled cheese and a veggie burger.

After breakfast, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Marin Headlands.  The road wound up into the hills, where a beautiful view of San Francsico framed by the bridge greeted us.  We spent some time admiring the view from different lookout points before heading back into the city.

Our next stop was Alamo Square, where we spent just a few minutes looking at the juxtaposition between the homes and the downtown skyline.  Although the view was pretty, it was a bit anti-climactic in that there is nothing remarkable about the area except for the view over one small row of homes.

We then made our way to Coit Tower, but since they were charging admission, we decided it wasn’t worth it to climb to the top of the tower.  We were able to drive down the famously curvaceous segment of Lombard Street, though, which was fun.

We drove across town and back to Fort Funston, where Data was able to run and play off-leash for a while before Amanda and her friend, Kristina, met us at the park.  The four of us drove to a mall to try and find Halloween costumes.  The costume store at the mall was flooded with people and had nothing in stock that wasn’t a typical and cheesy type of costume, so we walked away empty-handed.  As we left the mall, we felt a large vibration and the car shook fairly violently.  At first, we thought a B.A.R.T. train may have been running underneath our position, but it turns out there was a large earthquake near San Jose.  This was the first earthquake that either Julia or I had experienced, so it was pretty cool.

We were in the mood for Italian food, so we drove to the North Beach area, which is San Francisco’s “Little Italy.”  We went to a small pizza and pasta restaurant called Tommaso’s.  The food and atmosphere were great, and we all had a good time.

After dinner, we said goodnight to Amanda and Kristina before returning to Lombard Street, where I took a few long-exposure photographs of cars descending the famous curves.

Finally, we made our way back to Moraga, where we have been relaxing with cookies and ice cream.  Neither of us are feeling very well, so we will probably sleep in tomorrow before heading into the city again for dinner and Halloween rowdiness.

Here are some photos from today.  Click “there’s more to this” to see them all.

Cars descending Lombard Street.

San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.

The “Painted Ladies” in front of the San Francisco skyline from Alamo Square.

Kristina, Amanda and Julia.