vacation wrap-up!
1:21 p.m.

ok, time to finish up the story of steve's visit...

friday morning steve and jr took the bus back to eureka. jr rode his bike to work and steve started walking back to my house...bear in mind he doesn't really know his way around eureka, haha!

he called my cell at 8am. he was walking down wabash. i kinda guided him in, that was fun. when he was at the top of the hill here, about 4 blocks from my house, i went outside cuz i could see him up there. i said "wait..ok...go right a little." steve said "well, that's the way i just came from!" i said "stop! ok, look down at the bottom of the hill...see me waving?"

that was so fun!

so we got ready. left town, and pulled off into king salmon so steve could scoop up some sand to take home. we were on the road by 10am.

detoured off the hwy to see the drive through tree...you saw that pic the other day. had some great talks, listened to good tunes. steve really loves "save me" by aimee mann.

we stopped in windsor to hit the aztec grill at the chevron station that sheila turned me on to. i had the veggie burritto again, so yummy.

got to the city around 4pm. my new song for driving across the bridge is u2's "vertigo" that great descending guitar riff really makes me put the pedal to the metal!

it's so easy to get out to the ocen park motel...you turn onto park presidio right after the bridge, go through the tunnel...then it curves a bit as it goes through the park and then you're on 19th ave. straight out to sloat, past the zoo, and make a right on 46th...or is it 47th? and there it is.

this time i got a room on the street side. that's it right here...

we chilled for a bit. then we walked over to the beach. took some pics, of course...

walked about a mile up the beach, then we walked back through the neighborhoods. i really love it out there. there's lots of deco houses. got back to the room. after a bit of phone trouble

steve got hold of his friends in oakland. the plan was to go downtown, get him on bart, and he'd meet them over there.

so we headed downtown. i took PP a bit too far north, so we drove back through the tunnel and went through the marina district. lots of eye candy on the way. the men get hotter the closer you get to downtown! got some good pedestrian shots while i was driving...

we got onto polk, and by now steve knew that we were on the WRONG end of polk to see all the boy hookers, hehehe!

went down bush, and i thought i'd use the sutter-stockton garage, (or is it stockton-sutter?) as we saw they had a sign that said 6 dollar maximum in the evening. i wasn't quite sure if that meant per hour...see, when i went down to get steve i parked at the place across from claude alley, and that was 21 bucks for like 2 hours!

walked down to market. more eye candy. saw a beautiful frecklelisious boy working at escape from ny pizza, but the pic i took was mostly reflections through the window. i am shameless, what can i say?

got to bart, said our goodbyes...i went up to the virgin megastore, 3rd floor...books. got the huge moonage daydream :the life and times of ziggy stardust mick rock's book of photos of bowie circa 72-73...amazing! it was 50 bucks, but on sale 15% off. picked up cooper's god jr and some magazines. the dreadlock guy working up there is soo sweet and cool i should write them a letter.

our store on market is 2 doors down from virgin, i cut through there and exited at the other end, they have an escalator up to street level. went to the garage. it's kinda cool. you pay in the lobby. pop your card in the machine and pay there. they dont have guys sitting in the booths at the gates as you drive out. i guess that keeps the prices down...honey, it was 2 bucks!!!

headed west. got onto geary and got a burger, fries and a shake at tony's cable car drive in, which i haven't been to in at least 20 years. it's a cool little neighborhood place.

took more pics driving back to motel. got settled, ate. got in bed and read a bit. asleep by 10. those 4-car streetcars that go by all the time didn't keep me awake. it's so weird, they stop at the corner for a few minutes, the driver reads the paper, then they head north. they were all pretty empty.

went out to the haight saturday morning. it was quiet. lots of parking. foggy and a bit of drizzle. street kids. went to amoeba when the opened at 10:30. got public image's cd of metal box (another of my all-time faves) in the little metal tin. found that DNA cd with pretty much everything they ever recorded, it even has the songs off of no new york which is ANOTHER of my top ten records...funny how in the last few months all my faves are showing up in front of me...gang of four, byrne/eno, etc...oh, and found that acoustic X cd, that i have already but my copy is scratched, and that was lucky to find, as it's out of print. the biggest score was a 2-dvd set of the joni documentary AND the concert in the round thing, the one i had on tape that i gave to jason last year...the 2 dvd set was 10 bucks!

went to mickey d's on the corner, got some junk food and went to the park and ate. was gonna maybe hit the new de young museum and go up that observation tower or maybe head downtown to sfmoma, but it was raining and i really felt like headin' home. was in the PP tunnel at noon, got home right before 5pm, which was excellent time as it rained pretty much the entire way home. i only stopped in willits for gas. took a few rainy scenery pics on the way up...

chatted with steve sunday night...home safe, ohio sucks!

well, i might post a few more pics next time, and some random thought, etc, about the whole visit. damn, would love steve to move out here. i burned him a cd of all the pics, so when julie sees them i hope she'll say hell yes, let's do it! :)

i'm gonna post a lot of pics on fotolog, but that's only one a day. and i will probably do another sf b&w folder on flickr. will keep you posted on that.

it's dreary here today. but the house is clean, my bills are paid, life is good.

i still need to talk about last month, all sorts of interesting little things went on.

need to go get some cat food. then i think a leasurely afternoon on the couch. cooper's book is amazing. magazines to catch up on. my new vanilla coffee, mmmmm.

ok kids, have a geat weekend!

love ya's,

michael