Meeting Old Friends for the First Time

I am happy to report that I spent the whole day with quilt artist extraordinaire Alan Kelchner. We did a lot of tourist things in San Francisco (thank you Alan), and we both took a lot of photos. Ate the requisite seafood at the wharf, and wound our way slowly back to the trolley, to take the train back to Berkeley. We were both really tired, but gathered up a little extra energy to do a show and tell of quilts at Alan's. I must be one of the few people who have seen his extensive collection. It's amazing. He's in stages of several projects right now, one of which is quilted paper! Alan has enormous creativity - and infuses his whole world with it. That artist's eye showed me things in the city that no tourist would ever visit. Thank you again, Alan!

Today I got my courage up and took the car to San Fran. I wanted to visit places that would be too hard to get to by a series of mass transit modes. Baker Beach was first on the list, and indeed there's a lovely view of the Golden Gate bridge from there. Then I drove to the bridge, parked the car, and walked across. I took two lenses just in case I saw something that grabbed me. I haven't looked at the photos yet, but it was an anxiety-producing experience to be up there. Apparently there is a bike rental place nearby so the tourists were primarily on wheels - and there were a lot of them. On top of that danger, there's a strong wind on the bridge and I had trouble holding the camera still. Usually I use a support to lean on, but in this case, there were four lanes of heavy traffic adding to the general vibrations. Probably got a lot of blurs.

Afterwards, I drove south down the beach highway, passing Cliff House. Wide white beach out there, with kites but few people. Checking the clock I saw that it was 3:00pm and thought it prudent to head back to the Bay Bridge to Berkeley. Wasn't soon enough on a Friday afternoon, and I spent more time sitting on the freeway than I wanted to. When I got home I went out back and watered the garden, a lovely calming activity. Then I ate some watermelon. What a good day!