Page 4 of 4
San Francisco, California
She shoots but never misses, stare down passing traffic, go carefully, carefully, oh airstream driver
The San Francisco slides finish up with a run of familiar and iconic images of the city, starting with a quick shot of a quick window reflection from a quick early morning cable car ride on my last day in the city. Despite being there the better part of a week, the trip still seemed especially rushed. Every morning, every afternoon, every day I found myself in the midst of a wall to wall schedule, and while I certainly appreciated all the benefits that such a schedule brought I always wished that I had managed to carve out just a little more time to just enjoy the place. Same (for me at least) as it ever was.
Probably the only disappointing AIA tour I took was at the ballpark. AT&T Park (home of the one time New York Giants) is a terrifically sited building where I once saw a game from the club seats (way back in 2001), so when I read about an offered tour by the project's architects that would take you behind the scenes and into non-public areas I decided to sign on up. Unfortunately the tour was quickly hijacked by a Giants representative who took us on the standard ballpark tour and talked fairly little about the building's design and construction. At least there were plenty of visual distractions (like this killer view of the Oakland Bay Bridge) to save me from having to pretend I was really all that interested in the history of a baseball team I have never really followed.
One interesting fact though. During the initial bid phase for the stadium's corporate naming rights, Ralph Lauren was a finalist and should he have won, the stadium would have been called the Polo Grounds. Has a much better ring than Pacific Bell Park, um, I mean SBC Park, um, I mean AT&T Park, um, I mean whoever ends up eventually taking over AT&T Park.
One of the more interesting AIA tours took me to the top (or near the top) of three new buildings near the Transbay Terminal, a chance to see a neighborhood in transition from both the street and from high above. Of the three buildings, the highest was Handel Architects' Millennium Tower, where we were whisked up to the unfinished (and unsold) 60th floor penthouse where I could enjoy million dollar views in ever direction, at least for a few minutes.
While nothing special, I am still especially proud of this picture. Taken from the front seat of my unlucky rental car as I sped south across the bridge, a bridge that was completely covered with a dense fog except for this one especially short break of clear blue sky. And while the photo is not especially centered or as carefully thought out as some of the other pictures, at least you can see the tower. Pretty impressive since I don't remember looking up and more importantly I definitely never even looked through the camera lens.
Way down the coast from San Francisco is Hearst Castle, somewhere I had never been but somewhere that had (for as long as I can remember) always intrigued me. Maybe it was because of that "Citizen Kane" movie, but more likely it was because it a trip there was offered as a prize for some cheesy daytime game show I remember watching as a little kid. I can still picture the still image of the pool as some tv announcer talked on and on about majestic Hearst Castle in beautiful San Simeon, California.
A monstrously large and overdone private residence for William Randolph Hearst designed by architect Julia Morgan, a rare woman in an (especially at the time) all man's field, Hearst Castle was one of those places that I almost approached from both the south and the north coasts on multiple trips but one of those places I still never quite got to. When figuring out the San Francisco trip I decided to finally take the plunge, especially since it was during the rare time in the spring and fall when a special extended nighttime tour of the building was offered. During these longer tours a series of volunteer actors spend all night dressed up in period outfits as they mull about the building. Some were clearly dressed as guests, some were clearly dressed as servants and some were nearly impossible to tell exactly what they were supposed to be. Despite the potential corniness of such volunteer actors, they managed to add another layer to the experience and the place's wonderfully odd sense of isolation. The building is located high above the ocean on a mountaintop, a good 15 to 20 minute bus ride inland from the coast and its omnipresent fog that time of year. When you finally find yourself at the pool at dusk and finally find yourself above all that fog, it is a sight that in many ways takes you by surprise and is far more unforgettable than I could have ever imagined all those years (and years) ago.
The tour that I took covered all of the major areas (a rare feat considering the way that daytime tours are usually broken up) and had the added benefit of a cool night sky. Arriving at the pool at dusk, walking through the guest houses and into the castle as night set in seemed to make everything even better. And despite the fact that objectively the building was not especially great, it just didn't matter that night, with all the lights on and scattered costumed actors drifting all about, lost in a world that is hard to believe had ever even existed in the first place.
Wildly out of chronological order, we now go to pictures taken along the California coast, one of the rare places where driving is (often) more fun than it probably ever should be. Panoramic vistas, amazing beaches and coastal mountains are all connected by California State Route 1, a road that rises, falls, twists and turns to meet every view head on. Fast, slow, fast, fast, slow, sometimes a wide turn, sometimes a quick one.
This photo starts where I did, a late afternoon shot not all that far from San Simeon, where the reliable tides and even more reliable coastal fog worked together to create yet another unforgettable moment.
A highlight of Big Sur (especially if you don't count all those panoramic vistas, amazing beaches and coastal mountains) has to be the Bixby Creek Bridge, the most scenic of a series of graceful, well sited bridges with similar designs.
And while driving Route 1 is a thrilling (yes, thrilling) experience, it can be frustrating as well if there is an especially slow RV driving a few cars in front of you. For every glorious mile that I drove a totally open road that early foggy morning, I was faced with another mile of slow, tedious, bumper to bumper driving behind a slow moving vehicle that refused to follow the law and pull over. Additionally every time I would finally pass the damn thing, I'd find a view too beautiful to pass up and pull off the road for a better view, only to watch that damn RV pass me yet again, each time leading a slightly longer parade of cars filled with bitter drivers. Still I guess if you're going to get road rage anyway it might as well be on one of the greatest roads there is.
Years and years ago growing up I remember reading a small yellow book that my father had from National Geographic that was a guidebook to the US National Park System, a small yellow book that probably was and is responsible for many of my recent travels (Arches, Katmai, Denali) and for places I still hope to visit. After each National Park the book listed additional NPS facilities within a day's drive, and one of those was a small listing about Point Reyes National Seashore. Point Reyes is located off the North American tectonic plate and right on top of the fabled San Andreas Fault, and the National Geographic guide suggested that the park's Earthquake Trail would take you atop the fault (which it did) and show you first hand the power and destruction that it can cause (which it doesn't). It's not that it wasn't interesting or informative, but the trail just didn't (or couldn't) live up to my expectations. I was hoping to see some sort of huge scary fissure or a heaving cliff but instead got a grassy field with a few blue poles representing the fault line. And while the rest of the park certainly beat expectations, that trail was probably one of the biggest travel disappointments in recent memory.
Meanwhile to help us all forget that trail all about earthquakes, here are two quick pictures of another trail, this one out toward Chimney Rock...
Not only is that section of Route 1 insanely beautiful (even on an on again off again foggy morning), it is also teeming with wildlife. This is the Piedras Blancas (White Stones) Elephant Seal Rookery, where an ample parking lot and a well warned boardwalk leads to overlook after overlook of a hell of a lot of seals, a fascinating real life rookery almost close enough to touch (although touching the seals would of course be harmful and illegal). And on an early, foggy Sunday morning in early May, the seals took the opportunity to sleep in, to lie on the beach, to occasionally throw sand on themselves and (most importantly) to stink to high heaven. Words can not quite describe exactly what a real life rookery smells like. Take it from me.
But wait, there’s more
I go to these AIA Conventions almost every year, meaning that there’s lots of slideshows and pictures and stories from all sorts of different cities, showing off their best architecture and design for all to see.
