Winter Walk, SPCA Animals, Lefty O'Doul's -- December 30, 2014

I took the day off yesterday.  We drove downtown and parked at Fifth and Mission.  Walking up Fourth, we saw that Stockton Street looked different.  From Ellis to Geary, the street was covered with artificial grass and there were benches, a food truck and a coffee truck.  Signs said that this was WinterWalkSF.  Events included projections on the wall of the Macy's men store and Christmas carolers. 

We went to Macy's and looked at the SPCA animals in the windows. 

My wife particularly liked Latka, the puppy.  We hope she has found a good home. 

After some shopping, we went over to Powell Street to look at decorated cable cars.   I didn't hear the cable and didn't see any cable cars from Market to the top of the hill. We walked up towards Geary. When we got to Geary, my wife could hear the cable. I still didn't see any cars, so we went to lunch at Lefty O'Doul's.

I had corned beef on a sourdough roll and my wife had roast beef.  Very good. 

When we were finished, I saw a decorated car inbound at Geary. It was number 10, and we noticed that it carried a bunch of shopmen and no passengers. They were checking the track. They found an obstruction in the flangeway at O'Farrell. They turned around at Market and told people who waited in line that they were not picking up passengers.

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I had an interesting trip home today.  My one hour commute took two and a half hours.  It was cold and windy today.  When I got to the platform at Embarcadero Station, I noticed the next train was turning back at Montgomery.  An announcement said that there was no service between 24th and Mission and Daly City because a tree had fallen on the tracks.  There were similar problems in the East Bay.  They said we could get a bus from 24th to Daly City.  I got on a train that said it was going to the airport, but they threw us off at 24th.  A BART employee on the platform said it had been down for three hours.  I went to the street and tried to figure out what to do.  There were no BART employees giving directions.  I figured out that a 14 Mission would get me to Daly City.  I missed a limited.  Two locals were too crowded.  A limited came and I couldn't get on.  A Muni inspector said there was another limited right behind.  I pushed on and got a seat by Silver Avenue.  I saw Joe's Cable Car boarded up.  We eventually got to Daly City and turned down John Daly, passing a stream of people who had caught locals and had to hike down the hill.  They didn't look happy.  An airport train came just as I ran up the stairway.  It stopped just after the stretch along the freeway.  The operator said there was a routing problem and he would have to walk back through the train.  I didn't see him, so there must have been another operator.  The train ran backwards for a while, I suppose to get on a different track.  Then we went forward to the station.  Passing all those nice taquerias on Mission, I got an urge, so we went to La Playa for dinner. 

Powell Street Promenade #2 -- August 7, 2011

The Powell Street Promenade is part of the city's program of introducing neighborhood parklets. On street corners along Powell from Ellis to Geary, there are aluminum platforms with planters and railings. Yesterday I stood on the one on the west side of Powell near Geary with my new camera and took some photos. It was a good spot. Here we see car 25, built in 1890 and recently rebuilt, inbound on the Powell/Hyde line. It wears the red pre-1906 Powell Street paint scheme.

Before that, we had lunch at Lefty O'Doul's. I had corned beef on a sourdough roll. Very good.

San Francisco Walking Tour -- December 8, 2007

We had a fun day. We went to mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception at 8am. We drove downtown and parked at Fifth and Mission. We took a Milan car on the F down to the Ferry Building. At the Ferry Building, we met with the people who had the winning bid on a community support auction we had at work. I offerred a history walking tour of downtown San Francisco.

Out front, I talked about what it was like in the early 1930s, when the Ferry Building was the second busiest transit terminal in the world (Charing Cross in London was first). We went on to walk over by Mission Street, then back to Market, out California, over to Jackson Square, around to the Barbary Coast and Portsmouth Square. I enjoyed talking about history. We remarked on how many things we don't see when walking down the street. Then up to the Fortune Cookie Factory on Ross Alley. We went up the hill to Stockton, then through the tunnel and up to Burritt Street, then on to Powell and Lefty O'Doul's. I had a corned beef sandwich.

That was fun. The winners were very nice people.

We went back to Good Shepherd for 5pm mass. Two candles on the wreath. I always enjoy the first reading about the peaceable kingdom.