Friday, December 08, 2006

the 27 dollar photo

Not surprisingly I didn't have much trouble getting to sleep last night - well that was until 1.15 in the morning, when I found myself quite awake. With bugger all else to do, I did some work and finally got back to sleep at 4 am.

With a grand scheme in mind I'd set my alarm for 6.15 am, whereupon I planned to get this trip off to a flying start with an early morning run. I knew the sun was due to rise at 7.04 am and my plan was to get out to the Golden Gate bridge to go for a run across it, and back, as the sun rose over the city.

Amazingly, I did actually get up as planned and staggered out of my hotel ready to catch the first of 2 buses. It all seemed pretty easy in the planning stages - if I was lucky I'd catch one bus that would take me all the way there or, alternatively, catch a bus down Van Ness Ave and catch another one along Lombard Street and out to Golden Gate park.

Being dark and me somewhat groggy, having caught the first bus I missed the junction that I needed to get off to catch the connecting bus. Happily just 'rolling with the punches', I walked back up the hill laughing at my oversight and turned right onto Lombard St where I figured I'd just get to the first bus stop and head out ot the bridge from there. On the way down Van Ness the bus had stopped every 2 blocks (getting into the American vernacular), so I figured it would do the same down Lombard - oh hardy, har-har!

I ended up walking 15 blocks (1 1/2 miles) before I, eventually, came to a firkin' bus stop. I found out why from some lady at the bus stop, but I won't bore you with 'why' here.

So, onto the bus and some 1/2 hour later than planned, I finally made it out to the park. I had a quick stretch and took this photo looking eastwards back at the city...

Now, of course, I was only in my running gear and it was somewhat chilly out there on the exposed headland. So after fluffing around for a minute getting my kit sorted out I set out, heading across the bridge. Actually it is a lovely run and the view looking back over the city at that time of the morning is stunning.

As mentioned, it is somewhat windy out there, but considering that there is a busy highway right beside you it all works out rather well. Running on the city side footpath (there is one on either side), the wind blows directly across you and diverts the fumes from the traffic over the other side of the bridge - so you don't end up getting suffocated by carbon monoxide.

Meanwhile, there are tonnes of cyclists coming into town on the same footpath and they go bombing past you on their hi-speed racing bikes. I stopped a number of times to get some photos of various scenes with my camera-phone and an additionaly video of my bipedal madness.

After a 30-minute plod I had made it back to my starting point and was ready to catch the bus back into town, feeling quite pleased that I had done one of the things that had been on my list to do so early in the game.

It was at this point that I started ferreting through my pockets to find my MUNI pass. A MUNI pass can be bought in 1, 3 or 7 day blocks and covers all of your main transportation in the city i.e. buses, trains and cable cars.

I had bought my 7-day pass the day before at the airport, for $27 USD, and now, some 17 hours later I began to realise that I had just lost the bloody thing somewhere on Golden Gate Bridge whilst getting out my phone or some other idiotic manoeuver. Brillant, just brillant - it is 8am, I'm standing there in sweaty running clothes with no wallet, 5 miles from where I'm staying and I've lost my bus pass.

Luckily, I had taken a $20 bill with me in case of emergencies (and a note with my name, address, blood type and a note to say "I DO have medical insurance" - hoping they'd begin to patch me up if I'd been splatted by some over-sized American tank etc). But, when the first bus did finally turn up, I realised, as I'd suspected, they could not take bills that large. Luckily the bus driver, after hearing my odd story, let me on anyway and, so, off we set.

Relived to have finally got on a bus, being so keen to get back in town and having now explained my saga to the bus driver (who looked a wee bit sceptical that I'd even been running and whether I even had a MUNI pass in the first place), I just wanted to get back to town, shower up and get to the Hotel breakfast before it closed.

As I had known, there are 2 buses that stop at that tourist spot and, as became abundantly clear, I was on the wrong one. I didn't think it would be that bad because, surely, it was just heading back into the heart of town. And yes it was heading back into town but only after first going to Vancouver, Denver & Tijuana! So, off we set to do a complete loop around the whole firkin' Peninsula.

Realising what was going on, and now half way into his route, I decided to get off the bus and onto the road that ran directly back into town and straighy past my hotel. I still had no bus pass and the untouched $20 bill, but figured it was, all things considered, a better way to get back into town.

I was on 30th street and figured I had to get back to 1st and that would be that. Well, yes, I did have to get back to 1st, but then I discovered there were at least another 15+ 'named' blocks after that. By the time I got to 20th street & I eventually found an open shop (not much open in San Fran suburbs at that time of the day), changed some money and was finally able to hobble onto a bus back into town (I must have walked / run 10 miles at least by now).

The bus was a bendy-bus and standing there in my sweaty running clothes, I soon became very aware that we were in rush-hour traffic, with rush-hour passengers. Oh my God, I couldn't believe it, as we got closer to town more & more people kept on getting on the bus until, finally, it was just absolutely sardines.

Finally, oh so finally, we made it to my hotel stop. So a mere 3 hours after I set off, I had made it back to the hotel where I could now have a shower, get some fluids and draw a close on this mad-capped scheme... (after brekky I decided to go back to bed, have a snooze and try starting the day again)

So, ladies & gentlemen - I present to you the 27 dollar photo. Please click on it, say "Oh-arr, isn't it pretty" and send all monetary donations to 'captain fargon'.

2 Comments:

Blogger Phil said...

Why can't I read 'Van Ness Ave' without thinking of Ms Feltz?

And why weren't there any bus stops for 15 blocks? I need to know.

But well done for not throwing yourself off that bridge in frustration. And next time, take a cab.

9:15 am  
Blogger Captain Fargon said...

Well... it seems to loosely boil down to the fact that there is no reason to set off down Lombard looking for a bus so close to town (everyone's natural destination), when there are a billion stops on Van Ness for all outer-lying suburbs.

Which did make me kinda think that those folk who live in that first part of Lombard are in some sort of weird black hole, where no public transport will enter (or stop anyway)!

Actually, I did notice there were buses crossing Van Ness, but they weren't going where I wanted to go.

1:43 pm  

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