Most of my photos were subpar.. so only a handful made it to facebook. Not too happy about that, but oh well.
After a good delay, I left San Francisco and the Creature house. Once again I found myself getting really comfortable in a situation, but knew I couldn't allow myself to dig my feet in. I wanted to keep going, and stay at the same time. I was feeling the wanderlust (great word, thanks Paul!) fading away which was scary. The solution? Keep going.
...but not yet. One more night in San Francisco to cause some shenanigans, even though they ended up just being beneficial. I headed out to a bar, had a few good conversations with locals as I usually do..nothing too crazy, 'til I went to Uptown again. I sat down next to a lady at the bar, and after she asked about my bag, she said "Well... I was about to leave, but I think I'll have another beer. You're interesting." So, I'm interesting I suppose. Turns out this lady was a writer, who just published a book about Bike Messengers in San Francisco who ride around and kill corporate people...freakin' awesome. She also hosts a few radio shows, which I didn't have to option to listen to..but they seemed cool.
Pam Benjamin is her name, and she can be seen here, being humped by a person in a bear suit, while laughing.
Right as I left, and started to get on my moped, a guy by the name of Paul came out and struck up a conversation. He was riding the beautiful red, white and blue vintage Vespa parked right behind me. We had a chat about mopeds, scooters and the gangs associated with each, then he brought up "secret Lombard St." Apparently, a street just as crazy as the infamous Lombard, only very well hidden (it's in Potrero, shhh.)Considering how steep the hills were to get up to the top, I can understand why a lot of people avoid it. It's like the climb to Lombard, but a few blocks more... my poor moped. Eventually we make it to the top and we stop. He flips his visor, turns to me with a hand out saying, "On behalf of the Secret Society (the vintage scooter gang in SF), welcome to secret Lombard Street!" shakes my hand, then we ride through the intersection, into what initially looked like a dead end with some trees... I was wrong. The ground instantly dropped out, and we were carving our way through these insanely tight turns, flying down the hill... at 3am. Awesome.
At the bottom of the hill was his apartment. We went in for a moment, had a chat about traveling, then I was on my way home but not without a gift of an inflatable 3/4 sleeping pad. Rad, again. The next morning, after another fantastic cup of Philz coffee, I was off.
The cruise down El Camino Real was great as usual. It's a straight shot out of San Francisco and down towards San Jose. 80F, not a cloud in the sky, 35-40mph zones... I was happy. Cruising through San Mateo, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and San Jose were really fun.. but had I known my future predicaments and the difficulty of getting from San Jose to Santa Cruz, I probably should have taken Route 1. Live and learn.
My attention is being pulled in a mess of directions right now, and time is ticking away, so I'll leave this post as is.
More tomorrow!
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