September 23, 2007

• Sunday, September 23

  The weather was a little nicer on Sunday so I got out on my bike and headed down the Peninsula.  I rode 18th St to Valencia to Tiffany to 29th to San Jose Ave to Arlington to Richland to Murray.  This beautiful Victorian is at Murray and Richland.  It’s seen better days but who hasn’t??

  

  

  I went through Saint Mary’s Park and then over the footbridge over 280 and then up Cambridge into McLaren Park.  This house is a puzzle:

  

  It’s definitely on park grounds.  It seems a lot older than anything else in the park.  And when I tried to approach it a woman yelled at me to turn around.  Why??  All we need is somebody dressed up as the ghost of Jerry Garcia to scare people away while they look for John McLaren’s treasure and maybe Scooby and the Gang will show up.  I continued up to Mansell and Visitacion where the view was pretty but a little foggy:

  

  Then I wnet down Mansell to Persia to Dublin to Russia to Moscow to Geneva to Alemany.  This is the far away view of the City College Science Building from Alemany.  It’s Bauhausilicious.

  

  I continued down Alemany to Sagamore to Brotherhood Way where I photographed this sculpture.  There’s a very similar one to it in Fort Mason Park and I thought it was of Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise:

  

  

  But no!  It’s by Benny Bufano.  You can read more about him here.  I think I like his work a little better now that I’m realizing it’s completely unrelated to Freakshow Cruise and his Stepford Wife.  I made my way around Lake Merced and then took Skyline to Millbrae.  It was really foggy up there so I didn’t get any good pictures.  I turned onto Hillcrest where I got a great view of the International Terminal and a Quantas 747-400 at the gate:

  

  Look it’s a Southwest 737!  For a new entrant I see a lot of their planes at SFO:

  

  I also saw this Lufthansa 747-400 taking off:

  

  I made my way down to the foot of Millbrae Ave and hung out for a while watching planes take off.  Check out this cool Alaska 737 that’s painted like a fish.  It reminded me of the Alaska MD-83 that nosedived into the Pacific Ocean off Pt Mugu in 2000 that you can read more about here.  Probably not what they intended:

  

  A Singapre 777-200ER heading off for Seoul before continuing on to Singapore.  I tooj this flight in 2000 when I went to Korea for my brother’s wedding.  The aircraft was an A340-300 then.  Much cooler looking than the ubiquitous 777 today.

  

  A Delta 767:

  

  The tide had gone out at the park and the birds were busily snacking on whatever it is that lives in the mud:

  

  Cool corporate jet landing:

  

  An American MD80:

  

  A United 777 or 767.  I think 777:

  

  

  An Airtran 737

  

  A SkyWest turbo prop.  I’ve met a SkyWest flight attendent.  And he was C-R-A-Z-Y!  Even by my standards.

  

  Another view of the salt marsh surrounding the airport:

  

  Three shots of a Frontier Airbus coming in for a landing:

  

  

  

  A parallel landing–  those two planes are not landing on the same runway:

  

  

  

  

  I left the park and got a close view of this United 737 as I headed North up McDonnell Road:

  

  I continued up McDonnell to San Bruno Ave and then headed up that.  Millbrae and South San Francisco are cute little towns with little downtown areas that you might like to visit.  San Bruno, conversely, is kind of dumpy.  Maybe the new BART station will change that.  Because it needs to work on that.  I followed San Bruno Ave to Cherry where I found this cool building that made me forget all about how crappy the rest of the town was:

  

  

  And I even got a great shot of an Air China 747-400 headed for Taipei:

  

  I took Cherry to Sneath and then headed into the Golden Gate National Cemetery.  There were stern signs saying no tourists, no biking, no jogging, and no picnics.  I didn’t want to end up at Gitmo so I just took a few pics at the entrance and left:

  

  

  

  

  I made my way back up to Skyline and came back into town.  The weather was much nicer at Ocean Beach than down on the peninsula and the Surferlicious surfers were everwhere:

  

  I headed up Taravel. I got this pretty peek of Saint Cecilia’s from Taravel at 19th Ave:

  

  I continued up Taravel to Dewey to 7th Ave to Clarendon.  These goats are hard at work on the Laguna Honda Hospital Grounds clearing away brush.  I’m just guessing that after this meal about half of them were heroin addicts:

  

  I took Clarendon to Twin Peaks to 17th to Roosevelt to Levant to States and then into the dog park because Sofi and Rufus were playing there.  I love Sofi. She’s so sweet.  But she can totally administer the smack down if Rufus tries to play to hard with her.  Old School.

  

  My legs in shadow with Rufus.  As you can see, I have legs that go all the way down to my ankles and even then they’re only resting.

  

  Here’s Sofi showing him who’s boss:

  

  We headed home for dinner.  Our bathing suits for our trip to Hawaii arrived!  They must have been delivered to a neighbor because we just got them.  Jeff’s looks great on him but mine is a little snug so I’m going to need to lose a little weight before I go.  Lousy metabolism.  After dinner, Rufus was totally wiped out thanks to my girl Sofi.  This is why she’s my favorite:

  

  Total bike mileage:   46.8
  

  • 11:14 pm
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