Whale...What?

I was awoken by the sounds of several children running up and down the hall outside the room I was in around 7AM. I staggered forth into the common area in search of some coffee and there I found a giant swarm of kids. Once I had obtained a cup of joe, I took a seat next to a tall man with small cowboy esq hat wearing long pajama looking clothes. I sat there in a daze and still very weary from my travels the day before trying to contemplate my next move.

It wasn’t before long that man introduced himself. He told me of a big anti war rally that was going to take place in San Francisco in the next couple of days and asked me if I wanted to go. I thought about it for a minute or two, but decided against getting involved in any kind of protest, although it would have made for a good story. We then started talking Politics which wasn’t that bad, except for my new friend had some far out theories. He told me of his struggles to “live off the radar” in the mountains above San Francisco. He had to rely on generators for electricity and his truck he modified to run off Bio-diesel. When I asked why he lived like this well the answer was obscure do to the fact he felt the government was tracking him, but he did hint at that he grew a special “good-time” crop way up there. He also told me of his grand plan for a new nation that consisted of all the west coastal states and the Mexican Baja Peninsula. He called it Waletopia and it would be the new world, free of government tyranny, where people wouldn’t have to pay taxes and marijuana was legal. He even had designs drawn up for the money they would use.

After my chat I packed my stuff together and decided to move to a hostel inside San Francisco. It had nothing to do with anyone I met at my present location, I just wanted to get out of paying for the previous night, and my feet and legs were tore up something awful so I didn’t feel like doing anymore long distance urban hiking.

Unfortunately when I arrived at the new hostel at Fort Mason, It was to early to check in, and baring waiting on the steps of the place, and seeing how moving about the hills in San Francisco with a manual transmission vehicle isn’t the best way to travel, I would once again be hoofing it about town. This time I got some directions on how to use the bus. I decided to go and check out Golden Gate Park, and hoped on the #43 up that way. Now when I think of a park, I think of something along the lines of Grant Park in Chicago, wide open spaces with a sprinkling of trees and well maintained. Now Golden Gate Park is more like Central Park, long covered in trees and paths leading through wooded areas where the bums live. I had a hell of a time navigating it, but it was a rather nice park with all kinds of things to see in it. Unfortunately I would be walking through it with my God forsaken pack once again.

When I emerged from the park on one end, the crappy map I was carrying didn’t have the streets I was on, on it! I was lost in a part of town where roving gangs of Asians stood on there corners, Gay people tended to there houses, and bums were trying to sell me pot. It wasn’t before long that I came to a street I recognized instantly from its fame. I was on Haight street and what an interesting street it is. Kind of reminded me of Belmont street back in Chicago. Lots of interesting shops and places to eat, crowed by the young stoner types and the hipster duffass’s. I made my way up Ashbury where, I took a few photos and then decided to make my way over to China town. with my new found skill to read a bus rout, I hoped on the #19 which took me with in a few blocks of my destination.