Last Saturday I didn't have plans but wanted to get out of the house, so I thought I'd go do some of the "Places to Go" I've pinned for myself on Pinterest. One was a thrift store warehouse near my office and another was to see the tiled steps up in SF. Before I left I texted a friend whether she'd like to come and she responded in the best way a friend can - by volunteering her schedule. "I can't today, but how about next Saturday?"
So yesterday we set off for an SF adventure.
I had floated the idea of stopping at Starbread Bakery and Susie was on board, so we first got (amazing) coffee at Philz in SSF then got a box of Senorita Bread at Starbread Bakery. I'd already had coffee at home but I wasn't about to turn down Philz when Susie wanted to stop. Turns out two cups of strong coffee keeps me up past midnight but I only found that out later. The reason for Starbread was that someone had brought in the small buttery sweet rolls to work once and I was so entranced I wrote down their name. The bakery was really a counter off to the side of an unappetizing looking noodle shop, and besides the senorita bread it seemed to mostly sell chicharones and the sweet potato-based desserts that I won't try because I learned my lesson with red bean paste that I can't get behind vegetables as dessert. The little sweet rolls were delicious with the coffee.
Properly fueled, we went to our first stop: slides. I'd heard about SF slides - playground-like slides hidden on the city's hills. So steep or rough you need cardboard to lubricate your ride down. I'd prepared by filling my trunk with boxes from several orders of 0.22 um PES vacuum-top filters at work so we were ready. The first slides were at Esmerelda park:
They were metal and let you go down quite fast.
They were the only slides I found in my searches ahead of time but Susie knew the name of the Seward park slides so we went there next.
After the slides we headed toward our first set of tiled steps but Susie noticed we were near Twin Peaks so we took a detour to see the view.
Twin Peaks gives a panoramic view of the whole city so we snapped lots of pictures.
After Twin Peaks we got back on track for the 16th Avenue tiled steps.
The steps were much taller than I had thought they'd be, and the mosaic transitioned from sea to earth to sky to sun. Once we got to the top we saw we were at Grandview Park, another hill with a view of the city, but this time a sand dune.
We climbed back down all the stairs and had lunch at a nearby Thai restaurant before heading to the next tiled steps at Lincoln Park.
These stairs were shorter but wider, and more of a tile design than mosaic like the 16th Ave had been.
After seeing those steps, I needed a pit stop so we went to Lands End and Susie planned to circle the car while I ran in to go to the bathroom at the gift shop. But when I got out Susie was out of the car because she had found a parking spot. Susie had never seen the Sutro Baths before, so we went down to check out the ruins.
From there we headed to the last item on the list, the Wave Organ near the Marina Green. It took us a while to find where it was located near the end of the jetty, and we weren't able to hear much, but we ended up being right on the water to catch the sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge while the sailboats came in to finish their race.
(I wore this free jacket from work in case it got ruined on the slides. I think it makes me look like a gorilla.)
We stopped for dinner at Mel's Diner to let traffic die down before coming home.
I don't think I've ever had such a nice day in San Francisco. The weather was gorgeous, we found parking pretty easily everywhere we went, we didn't pay for any parking at all, and the only homeless person we encountered was one who sat outside the window at Mel's and watched Susie intently while she ate her sandwich until the restaurant manager chased him off.
Most of these photos are Susie's because she takes better ones than I do. She's a beautiful person and I'm glad we got to have that day together.
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