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July 17. The Fun Park store was kawaii overload. So many cute plush faces! Also weird Japanese humor, like a dog sitting on the toilet reading. A Shiba lying on its side eating a potato chip is fine, though. Laziness seems to be a key component to this kind of animal humor. This is demonstrated […]

Yes, another location selected for its bearable temperature. At 12:30 it was a sunny, perfect 68 with a light breeze. I headed for the Golden Gate National Cemetery from the BART station, half an hour on foot. There’s no bus service in that direction and San Bruno lacks bike share.  But I had to stop

Because of extreme heat warnings, I planned this expedition to hit the coolest spots. Of course, I could have just stayed home since Berkeley rarely gets too hot. When I passed through San Rafael around noon, the car thermometer said it was 90 degrees. In Tiburon it was only about 80.  The Tiburon Railroad &

June 26, 2024. Today I walked a section of the Double Cross Trail, companion to the Crosstown Trail. The trails create an X across San Francisco with the Double Cross Trail going from southwest to northeast. I started at the southwest corner, the overlook near the hang glider area. I love this warning sign where

June 12, 2024. I started by visiting two of the four Andy Goldsworthy pieces in the park, Wood Line and the Spire. The Wood Line is a 1,000 foot + snaking S curve of tree trunks that’s very hard to photograph well in dappled sunlight! You’ll have to look it up online.  I visited it

As locals know, Colma is a city south of San Francisco that is mostly cemeteries. About 1500 people live there along with about two million deceased. Why? The gold rush increased San Francisco’s population quickly and more cemetery space was needed. But the city needed that land for housing and businesses and wouldn’t permit more

The East Cut neighborhood was formed in 2017 from the Yerba Buena, South Beach and Rincon Hill neighborhoods. Realtors talk it up as an exciting, vibrant (realtor-speak) area with great walkability. Some decry it as a soulless, realtor-invented place. I found it to be an interesting mix of new and old. Note: the 19th Street BART

I started at the Richmond Art Center. It’s part of the Richmond Civic Center which was planned in part by Richard Neutra and later designed anew by Timothy Pflueger (Pacific Telephone building, Castro Theater, Pacfic Stock Exchange, 450 Sutter Street, with its majestic gilded lobby). The civic center is more Bauhaus than ornate and I

May 16. I biked to the Berkeley Amtrak station to get the train to Martinez. I’ve never taken a train from this station before and was not expecting to step up almost two feet into the train. It was a little tricky (and not very graceful) lifting my bike into the train. In Martinez, the

May 1, 2024: I started at Lobos Valley Creek Trail boardwalk where I left off in January (Expedition 24) and walked south. This is about halfway through section 5. The path meanders through a field of coastal natives, including lots of lizards sunning themselves.  Then you’re back in the city again, although walking on the