The Lord will Provide: Part 1: Showers, Beds, and Art in the City.

Stardate: 04.15.2010

Ok, let's play ketchup again, It is now Thursday, the Long Walkers are in El Cerito, and the title of this blog is neither a metaphor, nor an exaggeration.

Monday morning, I signed off with the news that we wanted to get out of Pacifica and into San Francisco before the end of the day and that we were waiting for Susanne to be able to contact her friends there. Well, as it turned out, she got ahold of someone at YWAM San Francisco only to discover that there was a large group of church kids already installed in the rooms and recreation areas because of Easter break (aka Spring break, but this is a Christian organization and therefore exempt from the separation clause), and she was unable to contact Earl who might have been able to work something for us as well. Neither could I contact my families friend John in El Cerito, so we did not have a destination in the City.

In any case, long about noon, Susanne decided that she just couldn't take sitting at Starbucks anymore, even in the rain, and suggested that we just go and figure it out on the way. Nick and I concurred, so we walked across the street to the Linda Mar Park'n'Ride to wait for the 110 bus that would take us to the Daley City BART station. We got wet crossing the street, used the restroom at the gas station next door to the stop, and huddled in the roofed shelter waiting for the bus, then climbed aboard. Bus drivers get this look when they see us coming, most of them are friendly enough, but you can tell that they are not thrilled by the size of our packs.

We have good gear, and the huge packs mark us as travellers instead of homebums but we still run into prejudice and averted eyes as often as we run into friendly interest and conversation. Carrying your house on your back is beyond the pale in America these days, probably because so many are afraid that they are only one paycheck from losing their homes and living out of a car or a backpack themselves.

Nonetheless we managed to find three benches open (with the pack you take up at least two seats) and rode out of the rain into a beautiful sunny day as we crossed from San Mateo county and into San Francisco county. At Daley City we worked the phones again, and Susanne's mother Linda (by far our greatest benefactor so far) came through with a donation to allow us to get a room in the City. We called around and found the Presidio Inn on Lombard near the Golden Gate end. Then We caught the Blue line to the Civic Center, and a bus from there to the corner of Chestnut and Divisedero, about two blocks from the hotel. The room was nice, with two large beds which works well (Nick prefers sleeping on the floor anyway because of his back) and a microwave, sink and mini-fridge equipped kitchenette as well as the typical closet/bathroom/dressing area—all at a very reasonable rate. I would recommend the place for staying in the City on a budget as it was about twenty dollars cheaper than anything else we could find.

That night we stayed in, even though we had planned to go out and look at the city after dinner. I cooked while Nick and then Susanne took showers and watched a movie. Potatoes, parsnips, cabbage, spinach, jalapenos, zuchini, and mushrooms sauteed with butter garlic, onions and red wine vinegar. Serrved with rice and a salad of shredded cabbage, spinach, mushrooms and Pepper-Jack cheese in a citrus vinegarette, savory brown rice, a gluten-free bread of almond and rice flour and corn tortillas. Everything was cooked in the microwave (except the bread and tortillas which I toasted with butter on a steel plate on our propane burner) and it came out perfect both in texture and flavor. That is an achievement.

I had to wake Susanne up to tell her dinner was ready, then wake her up again to hand her her plate. I guess the poison oak adventure, followed by an all-nighter at Denny's and a busy day wore her out. She was asleep again within minutes of finishing dinner and slept through the night.

Nick and I enjoyed the meal, I took a long hot shower while he made coffee, then we gorged on sweets, and watched Slumdog Millionaire. Great film, absolutely fantastic, though disturbing at many levels. I ended up staying up till like three in the morning, but slept well once I went out...

Tuesday I woke groggy on four hours sleep after skipping a night to the sounds of Susanne and Nick clattering about, got a cup of coffee and dragged my cranky ass into the shower before I said much since I had nothing cheerful to say. The shower and coffee fixed that and I emerged looking human and feeling cheerful about a day in the City.

We ate while we consulted our map, our memories of earlier San Francisco excursions, and the phone book looking for likely looking places to find art or do art. Finally we decided to wing it by heading back towards City Center, planning to catch a bus or the BART at some point and end up in the Mission District where there is an innovative arts center that provides living and working space for disabled artists to work, show, and sell their art. We checked the place's website, and it looked like a very cool setup—just our sort of thing.

We started walking East on Chestnut, occasionally consulting a map, and it was like flying. Being free from our packs for the day was wonderful. Susanne had her buttpack, and I carried my computer, sketchbook, novel, and some art supplies in my daypack, but the difference between carrying seventy pounds and carrying fifteen pounds is enormous. We could have been in a RedBull comercial even though we were fueled by coffee and tea. The sun was playing tag with interestingly shaped clouds so we just kept walking, it was so easy.

Eventually we decided that we would walk down Fisherman's Wharf to the BART there, and then catch BART where we wanted to go. We walked and took tons of pictures of random cool stuff, spent some time in a huge art gallery with tons of way expensive stuff in it (like a $160,000 clock and pornographic Japanese Ivory minatures for $3,600, see photos).

We learned, yet again, that when walking in San Francisco it is wise to use every bathroom you see, so as to avoid ducking behind a tree, for that is exactly what I had to do behind the Fog City Diner, irrigating their backyard while Susanne and Nick distracted pedestrians on the other side of the hedge. Next door to the diner is a beautiful little park where we sat and smoked for a bit, ate chocolate and took more photos. There we discussed eventual destinations for a few minutes, having realized that it was after three. We wanted to see more art, and were debating the relative merits of the gallery/workshop in the Mission District vrs the Palace of Fine Arts and not coming to any useful conclusions. Nick and I were rather neutral, neither ever having been to either—either would do, and Susanne could not make up her mind, so she importuned a couple sitting on a bench near the little waterfall there and asked their opinion. The young Asian hipster said he had never been to the one, and the last time he had been to the Palace was years back, but that he would recommend the Palace.

Thus edified, we gave up on the BART and headded back the way we had come, but by a somewhat different route that took in some interesting alleys beneath the Coit tower on the way to Crookedest Street, and thence off down Lombard towards our hotel and the Palace on the other side.We split up at that point, with Nick continuing to walk back towards the hotel while Susanne and I began looking for a bus as the hour was getting late and we were afraid we might not get there before closing.

To make a long story short, we got coffee to acquire change for a bus we never found going the correct direction, and wound up back at the hotel not long after Nick. We decided to go up to the room and use the computer and phone to find our way and check on the hours which we had of course missed by then. So we stayed in the room, made another good dinner and contented ourselves with the days walk, good food, coffee, Noepolitan ice cream, and another couple of movies. That night we all got to sleep at a reasonable hour and woke prepared to abandon the City the following morning.