Sausalito

“All aboard”. I love boat rides of any sort. I especially love ferry rides; it takes me back to the excitement of my childhood taking the car-ferry to Coronado Island in San Diego. Driving a car onto a boat just seemed magical to me. I’ve been trying-on public transportation wherever I go this year, so I wanted to take the ferry over to Sausalito just for the experience of it.

The most difficult part of the trip was getting through the farmer’s market laid out at the Ferry Building. Wow, it’s a huge one…on both sides of the Embarcadero. There were lines to get near the booths to simply see what was available. I was short on time so I didn’t really see much of what the market had to offer, but I vowed to go back one day soon and explore.

The ferry was big and comfortable – smooth and relaxing with a tinge of the exotic - or maybe it was just my overactive imagination. We crossed the bay quickly and approached the harbor. The homes that were precariously perched on their hillsides loomed over us as we disembarked. All us ferry-people converged on the quaint yet upscale town and I had to wonder if perhaps events and staffing were geared around what time the ferrys leave and arrive. But no, I decided, the town had a pulse all its own.  The ferry was likely a small part of their routines.

We beat the lunch crowds and had a great meal on the water. Surprise, surprise I had oysters…Blue Points to be precise, along with a great sandwich of succulent bay shrimp. Even though I live in a harbor town myself, I relish experiencing other ones too … Sausalito did not disappoint. I roamed the streets, took steep trails that led off the beaten path and found breath taking views and a place to sit and have a moment of contemplation.

We only stayed in town for a few hours since we had a Giants game to go to…Pac Bell park is still one of my all time favorites (I know it’s called ATT now, but it will always be Pac Bell to me). It was Tim Lincecum bobble head day…Whoo hoo, just what I needed to go with my Barry Bonds bobble head. “Heck yeah I’d stand in line!!” Oops, did I say that?  The gates opened at 4:05 – we headed down the Embarcadero around 2:30. Oh. My. God. Was that the line? We hadn’t even made it to the bay Bridge yet, and we were dead stopped…by the time they opened the gates the line had made its way back to the ferry building and perhaps beyond. Were we nuts? There was only 20,000 bobble heads to hand out to a sold out stadium. Wow, from a relaxing day of adventure to a stalled moment of anxiety. . . “Do you think there’ll be any left by the time we get to the turnstile?”

So here’s the good news: we had a great time chatting and joking with our line mates…the couple ahead of us were from New York (the Giants were playing the Mets), the couple behind us from Berkeley…yeah, we had fun and we began to let go of the urgent need to possess that bobble head (it really was poorly done anyway). But yes, I got mine as did many others who entered the gates an hour later (without a line, I might add)…hmmm was the standing in line for naught? Nope, I got to meet some fun people, to laugh and trade stories and enjoy the sun that greeted us as we walked into the park….Go Giants (Yes, we won).

My take-away for the weekend was that I’ve discovered that I don’t mind hordes of people…it’s kind of exciting being surrounded by so many different individuals and their unique energies. Yes, much of the day was hurry-up-and-wait, but it didn’t really impact the enjoyment of being in San Francisco. I spent time on a boat, eating my favorite foods, meeting new people, watching a great Giants game and in general soaking up the vibes of the city. San Francisco is tiny…it’s packed….it’s full of life and it beats to a rhythm of its own drum. It’s like no other city I’ve been in. It does life on its terms and that’s always appealing.