San Francisco and driving

Time is  flying by and I really need to be more disciplined in writing as things are just happening too quickly.

Today is Day 8 since we left Australia and we are in our third environment. The weather has continued to be fantastic with cool breezes and warm sunshine a perfect combination.

 When the Ordinary isn’t 

San Francisco is an amazing place, I will need to find a better word than amazing because too many things will be that way.  The eyes of a traveller is different to being at home and simple things that might be mundane become amazing simply by the dint of being a traveller.  Take for instances the wrought iron security doors.  Back home the usual style is straight up and down bars protecting the opening to the house or shop front.  But in San Fran they are beautifully wrought into twisted shapes and scenes, even the most simple of designs becomes quite beautiful when placed next to others equally twisted designs.  The architecture is also different and interesting to our eyes. The houses brightly painted in most areas. It reminds me most of the islands off Scotland the isle of Mull I think and Tobermory (but I may be wrong and too lazy to look it up). It adds colour to the city scape.

To travel is to be in a constant state of head twisting awareness of these differences around you.  Culturally despite being similar we are also apart.  On our first evening in San Fran we wandered, as we are want to do, along the park and came across mass groupings of adolescents and young adults out listening to music and chilling, holding BBQ’s on small up in the air plates.  They played games, frisbee or ball and it was the sheer numbers that overwhelmed us. Would this many get together in a park in Australia. Different groups and music styles all hanging out peacefully?  I’m not sure. I’m also not sure if it would be the same in other places.

What was the same was the amount of music we heard at Yosemite National Park.  Hikers carrying small speakers and walking along the trails.   I wondered at this used to listening to smaller in ear phones and not the more general open music choices of others.

Cherry Festival and Lands End

Colour and sound seemed to be the highlight of San Fran, with us making it just to the Cherry Festival parade.

At first I thought we had missed it but people were lining the streets to we lined up with them and soon floats started to drift down the avenue, girls dancing in kinimo’s and umbrellas, traditional cherry blessing being given, samurai and to top it off the Saki Barrels to be blessed with a mad man hanging from the rope as the towering float jerked its way down the street. It was a spectacle of sight and colour.

We left the colour and sound and found peace at the old pleasure grounds and baths near Ocean Beach. This amazing headland was sculptured by one of the city founders for the pleasure of the citizens. In its hey day it had baths and taverns and entertainment. It also had its own train into the heart of San Fran as the dude thought public transport was too expensive.  There was a darker side of the Land’s End which was at his heart he was racist with African American and Indians banned from the baths.  I find it odd that someone civic minded would still be a bigot.  I guess he was a product of his time but it did seem odd.

The Land’s End gardens are now a ruin with little left of the original plans, the ocean, wars and neglect have turned the area into almost ruins.  The larger estate became a army base and alcohol forbidden nearby. This really led to the death of the pleasure area which fell into disrepair.  As always there is beauty in the disintegration of civilisation with numbers of people taking in the sunset as we did.   

Yosemite

How does one even start to describe this place?  The drive was knuckle biting, our first in the USA. We picked the car up from the Airport, a slightly more expensive option, but it meant we could return it to the point we needed without any hassles of moving bags around.   It was a slightly larger car than. We were used to and driving on the wrong side meant iKaruS would drift right. As a passenger on the right the terror I felt at large trucks wheels in my field of vision was knuckle bite worthy.   We soon sorted out a short hand of words used to indicate drift and to remind each other of which side to drive on.

We drove rapidly past agricultural fields and rice paddies, wondering at what the different crops were. The trees in particular stumped us, cherry maybe or chestnut, almonds we knew but most we didn’t.   That gave way to rolling hills which in turn gave way to the more steeper mountains.  We stopped at a lookout the grey granite and burnt hills made a stark landscape. Initially it was not what I expected.  But as we drove further into the valley and the green lush fields lit up in the afternoon sun and the sparkling of the snowmelt waterfalls cascading over the dark granite it became much more as expected.

That first night we wandered a short while, setting up our camp in the Housekeeping tent.  I was worried I suppose about flies and insects seeing that no screens lined the tent which was in essence two hard sides and two soft plastic canvas material with ties to draw the door shut. Two ties that is.   We went to sleep with the rushing sound of the river in our ears and the agreement to attempt a moderate walk the next day.