Southerly: Bay Area Blues
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Mark Twain said: "The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco"
The locals laugh at the tourists in their shorts and tee-shirts freezing on the streets - summer is fog season - take some warm clothes, don't expect to enjoy the water at the beach in Northern California there's a cold current - across the bay in Berkeley/Oakland or south in the Valley the temperature will be hot - but not the City
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Jackie, Sacha- SF can be wonderful! (The street detritus* aka 'homeless people' was much less evident in the late 1980's/early1990s when I was there.) There is a magnificent museum of jade there...and excellent food...& clang!clang!clang! went the trolley...and one of the best zoological parks in the world...lavish seafogs, great kaimoana...I loved the place, much much better than NY or LA...it helped, to have family & friends with me-
*joke, just in case there are literalists lurking-
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If you get a chance, travel the Northern Pacific Highway--magnificent coastline and interesting corners of American history--including an old Russian trading fort at Fort Ross. My brother lives in Mendocino (which both Sir Douglas Quartet and The McGarrigle Sisters have sung about). Just up the coast is Fort Bragg, where you can find the Glass Beach--crescents of coloured glass particles which have been ground smooth by the tremendous surf. There are whales off-shore and wonderful wild flowers in spring and birds crowding the telephone wires in Bodega Bay (where The Birds was shot).
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... Bodega Bay (where The Birds was shot)
And where my most magnificent 40th birthday party was held over four fabulous days.
Don't forget to detour inland and drink some wine.
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Again - if you're traveling up highway 1 up the coast bring your winter woollies the fog rolls in in summer - a few kilometers inland from the coast it may be wonderfully hot - go inland where you can to a state park on a river and take a dip
Make sure you also see some Monterey pines (pinus radiata) in their native habitat - they don't normally grow tall and straight clumped close together in lines. In the wild they live on wind swept foggy cliffs - they're tough scraggly things that defy the elements
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Well as long as we're giving San Francisco travel advice, if you find yourself in need of a decent cup of coffee, go to the Farmer's Market at the wharf in downtown S.F. on Saturdays. I can't remember the name of it (and don't particularly want to reopen the great coffee debate), but it's coffee that actually tastes like it's seen a coffee bean at some point. Also, there's a cart that does a really good Mexican breakfast, and busking hipsters, some of which will be playing banjos, which I'm sure will please Bob.
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If you're into that sort of thing, there is also a really excellent vintage china shop called Naomi's Antiques, where I got my Franciscan Atomic Starburst cup and saucer. (I dream fruitlessly of owning an entire set.)
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I hear the Delancey Street Restaurant, staffed by ex-convicts, is pretty good.
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Thanks for all the handy advice, people!
Bob (or 'Thunderbird 2', as he prefers to be known these days) and I have been exploring hither and yon -- we're having a lovely time .
Swelteringly hot here at the moment. Another long night of writing/illustrating ahead of me; I feel as if heat stroke might take me any minute.
Hopefully St Peter provides cold beer for people who die in such circumstances .
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Oh the life of a stay at home Dad and auteur. C'est si dur, n'est - ce pas?
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The funny thing is that "sweltering hot" in Berkeley is pretty rare - there's a tongue of fog that sneaks across the bay in the evenings - a natural air conditioner which means that almost no one in the East Bay has actual air conditioning - the 2 nights a year it's actually hot, usually spring or Autumn before the summer fog kicks in in anger, people just sleep with the windows open.
It's why I used to live there, great weather during the day but seldom oppressive.
Of course you are taking Bob to Burning Man right, only a couple more weeks?
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David,
apropos of my little snippet of Greek knowledge, muni (the Greek word) is pronounced "moo nee" with a slight rising inflection. Which led me to ponder that Barry Humphries' locating of Edna Everage as coming from Moonee Ponds was probably exercising a modicum of Greek knowledge himself. It would hardly be coincidence, coming from him, eh? What with Melbourne being the 2nd most populous greek city and all that.
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Paul Campbell wrote:
The funny thing is that "sweltering hot" in Berkeley is pretty rare - there's a tongue of fog that sneaks across the bay in the evenings - a natural air conditioner...
Hmmm... I guess Antarctica would be the equivalent natural air conditioner in Dunedin...
Stewart wrote:
Which led me to ponder that Barry Humphries' locating of Edna Everage as coming from Moonee Ponds was probably exercising a modicum of Greek knowledge himself.
Ha -- seems like just the sort of thing that Humphries would do...
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Sadly it probably is ....
Just thought of another fun place to visit - if you happen to be down near 4th St the East bay Vivarium for all your reptilian needs - where the staff look a lot like the product
At the weekend take a kite and go out to the marina (and look at the really big kites)
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Try to hit the beaches in Santa Cruz if you can pop down for a day. Beautiful beaches reminded me of Piha and lovely little town :)
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the people sleeping on the traffic islands.
I was told they were early earthquake warning detectors employed by the state.
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