San Francisco

I've never had the opportunity to explore San Francisco before so I took advantage of an off day, bought a day pass for the CalTrain headed into the city with Roadie Nate. The walk from the CalTrain station to the piers is roughly 5 miles through Chinatown, Little Italy and Porno Row. (Porno Row may notbe the official name for the border of Chinatown and Little Italy, but it's the appropriate name I have given it.)

This is a brief look at Chinatown. Every Chinatown looks and smells the same. The pictures say everything.

Little Italy has some interesting signs. Here's one.

Now we move onto Porno Row.

Roadie Nate and I were standing on a corner looking for a specific coffee shop that we had been requested to buy a pound of coffee in. The directions were vague and it took a few minutes to get our bearings. While looking around noticing "Larry Flynt's Hustler World", and other various "adult book stores" a Guido looking pseudo pimp sauntered up to me and handed me 2 VIP cards to the "afternoon show"

His sales pitch was well rehearsed, explaining that he is a recent transplant to the Bay Area from Las Vegas where he was the hospitality director for a famous strip hotel. He told us how he has now moved to Frisco to apply his talents creating opulent upscale entertainment atmospheres for the seedy titty and go-go bars in North Beach. He offered VIP passes, waived the cover charge and offered a free drink to get us into the club. When we refused he sweetened the pot with a "dildo show".

I have never seen a "dildo show" but I can use my powers of deductive reasoning to determine exactly what one is. I have better things to spend my per diem on, but to be honest, there was a fleeting second where I was intrigued by the show.

We politely thanked him for his enticing offer and left him to hustle someone else while we continued our quest to find freshly roasted coffee. Roadies passing on depraved live porn for coffee... the world is coming to an end.

Our trek finally landed on pier 39. Pier 39 used to be a floating marina for local sailing and fishing vessels. In recent years some ruffians have moved in and pushed out the locals. Check these guys out:





There are easily 200 sea lions that are living in and on the now permanently protected marina and floating dock system off of pier 39. The smell is unbelievable but watching them was a joy.

Of course you can't have a San Francisco report without a picture of Alcatraz.

After spending a day exploring San Francisco, the train brought us back. Getting off of the train we immediately noticed something very different in the sky. I had already been fascinated by the sky watching the "marine layer" of clouds blow in over the mountains and roll down the hills fogging up the valleys below with frightening speed, but this was different. At the time we were clueless to the events of the afternoon, but at 1:45 PDT a forest fire had erupted in a national park to the south of San Jose. As soon as we stepped off of the train we noticed the huge plume of smoke in the sky.








There is some sage like wisdom in this graffiti.

And that's what I did today. Time for an early bedtime, it's back to work and another show tomorrow. Saratoga, CA here we come.