Yo-yos, temples and the Bay

The City by the Bay reminds me of an upended anthill, pushed up out of the water and crawling with activity. This particular anthill is paved over, its residents swarming at all hours. It’s exciting, enticing, exhausting.

Our tactic for the day: Get in, keep moving, get out.

Over the new Bay Bridge, fingers crossed that those controversial faulty materials won’t collapse today, down to the waterfront where artists have set up their weekly Saturday booths. Fused glass, seaglass, sunglasses. Fired clay, sculpted, painted and glazed. Photographs of someone else’s travels. A high school orchestra plays.

Farmers are there. Twisted cucumbers. Organic arugula. Whole rabbits, the dead kind, fur on the side.

We dive inside the Ferry Building seeking lunch, expecting heavy crowds. It’s worse than expected. Back outside, quickly, where we can breathe.

A morning spent in happy sunlight crosses into afternoon with clam chowder served in a sourdough round. We slurp it up, sitting at a park bench and gazing out over the water.

A 10-minute drive up and over this small hill, known as San Francisco, to the other side takes a half hour. Golden Gate Park is an elongated rectangle of green stretching down to the water. Inside are museums, ballfields, music halls, amphitheaters, forests, mini parks. We chance upon a parking spot and decide to walk wherever, no plan formed. It's the best way to attack this place where weekend parking is awarded to the lucky.

A trail leads us to a crowd of yo-yoers competing for a spot in the national contest. Far beyond walk-the-dog, this is double yo-yo spins, twists and throws set to blaring music. We wind our way past, narrowly avoiding hard twisting discs shot out like bullets by hopeful adolescents.

A red temple looms in the distance. I can’t resist a Japanese garden. $7 on Saturdays, but free on some weekdays. We learn why. Even at a price, this place draws crowds enough.

A little pricey for this small slice of garden, but we enjoy the bent maples, rock garden, koi pond and teahouse. Outside, the city is a messy chaos; inside, there is structure and peace. It's beautiful and we slow our pace and enjoy.

It's mid-afternoon and there's one thing on my mind. The same thing that all Bay Area people think about this time of day. Yeah. Traffic. As in, it's gonna get bad soon so get out. We head toward the car. There's a food truck just ahead and people move away carrying tasty looking frozen treats. Being San Francisco, these aren't ordinary treats. There's a strawberry mint sorbet lollipop dipped freshly in chocolate to each order. My pace slows. 10 more minutes can't hurt, right? 

Mmmmmm.