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2011-04-22 tl;dr: For my last day in California I visited the sea lions and not much else. It occurs to me that I haven't seen a continental breakfast donut since arriving in California. Out east "continental breakfast" is basically a euphemism for "donuts". Oh well. After today it won't matter.I decided to visit Fisherman's Wharf. I parked a half-mile away on a 2-hour-parking street. This was a huge improvement over the $3-for-15-minutes at the Wharf. Even though it's a weekday there were throngs of people; a large percentage of them being street performers, and a large percent of those painted head to toe in metallic colors. I skipped all that and made my way to the only thing that interested me: the sea lions. Apparently there are a lot more of them at certain times of the year. Based on the current stench I can only conclude that the miasma radiating from a full 600 sea lions during the peak season must be near lethal. Nobody asked me for money today. Well, once when I was at a stop sign a Mexican sprinted toward my car at one point yelling something. I moved on. But there were three guys who asked me to take their picture with their disposable camera. They weren't tourists, though. Or, if they were, they were taking the whole spirit of "when in Rome" to a new level. One was obviously homeless, one shirtless, and the last knew a thing or two about tattoos. After visiting Fisherman's Wharf I spent a few hours driving a loop around San Francisco. That got old real fast. But this is my last day in California, so I figured I should make the most of it. But I eventually realized that making the most of it is best accomplished by leaving it behind. So I returned my rental car and went to wait for a plane. Though my plane doesn't leave until after midnight, I arrived at San Francisco International Airport much earlier. Sitting in an airport for 6 hours is preferable to being a tourist in San Francisco. Dahon saved me $175. My bicycle when boxed up is small enough that not only did I avoid a $200 bicycle fee, but I also managed to avoid a $125 over-sized baggage fee. But I lost my jelly. I had thrown some bread and jelly that I hadn't used up into my pack. It never occurred to me that a squeeze bottle of strawberry jelly could be used for nefarious purposes. It was confiscated. Oddly enough, those plucky TSA agents didn't find the pocket knife that I purposefully hid between an external hard drive and my phone. |
 sea lions  Pier 39  typical San Francisco street |