A Lullaby of Dinosaurs

It's been a couple of weeks since we returned from San Francisco and the next planned trip is several months away; I have no photos to share and no links to click. Now, in late May, the tourist season is beginning in most of the world, so any place worth visiting will be hot, crowded, and expensive.

We'll pass on that and instead do a bit of traveling in place. We bought a membership in the Fort Worth Botanical Garden, which means free entry to their Japanese Garden and a small discount at the restaurant. There's a new show opening at the Kimbell focusing on Braque and Picasso and their period of Analytical Cubism, and there's always something worth seeing at the Amon Carter and the Modern. The Kimbell and the Modern are both fine places for a leisurely, heavily air-conditioned lunch, too.

There's the Trinity Trails, where we walk five to seven miles several times a week. Unlike Austin's Town Lake Trail, the trails in Fort Worth are mostly deserted, with only an occasional biker to interrupt the quiet. Each walk involves a big decision: do we go north, past LaGrave Field towards the stockyards? West, past the recycling yard and Greenwood Memorial Park? Or southwest, to Trinity Park and University Drive? North is the shortest and has a water fountain. West is the longest and loneliest and there's no water. Southwest has the most shade and several water fountains.

The Fort Worth Public Library has begun another free jazz concert series. We walk there frequently anyway -- why buy books and movies when you can get them for free? -- so we'll linger a bit every third Thursday and listen to some smooth sounds. There's free cookies, too.

For all of you who think that Apple Macs are too expensive, let me tell you about the computer project I've just finished. We bought our iMac five years ago (about $1,000) and our refurbished MacBook laptop four years ago (about $900). We've had no serious problems or costs with either one, although on our last trip to San Francisco I noticed some network problems because we are still running an old operating system, Tiger 10.4. Using an older OS has also prevented me from running a few programs like Chrome and the Kindle emulator, and not having the latest iTunes meant that Terri's beloved iPod Touch couldn't have all the latest and greatest stuff.

I considered getting new computers -- five years is an eon or two in computer time -- but decided in the end to stick with what we have. For less than $150 I upgraded the laptop's hardware and the OS to Snow Leopard 10.6 on both computers; not only was it cheap, it was easy and I had it all done in a single afternoon and evening. (Every so often I had to click OK but most of that time I was just waiting for files to be copied from one place to another.) This should keep us going for another three to four years, and by that time I assume we'll be doing all our computing on a teeny telephone and I will need much more powerful reading glasses. Until then, I think that getting seven to eight years or more of use out of a couple of computers for about $1,000 apiece is a bargain.

Fort Worth is a major railroad town, with lines converging here from all directions. At all hours of the day and night you can hear the rumble of trains and the blare of horns; fortunately for us we're just far enough away from the closest tracks that these sounds are mournfully romantic rather than annoying.

Windows open or closed, I'm usually lulled to sleep by train horns, long and short, high and low, near and far. One night, after hearing a particulary long blast nearby, I got a mental image of ancient dinosaurs, huge plant eaters like brontasauri, lumbering through swampy marshes, calling out to their mates and offspring. Short, high-pitched horns were young searching for their parents. Deep, insistent tones were males looking for females. And a lot of horns going at it at the same meant that a meat eater was near, threatening the herd of sauropods.

Ever since that image popped into my head I haven't been able to shake it. When I hear a train horn and feel the ground shake, I know that a dinosaur is afoot, and that I will soon be asleep.

Memo to AA Marketing: We're Falling For It

Dear American Airlines Marketing Dept.:

I just wanted to let you know that your almost daily emails and notifications of sales, bonuses, and special offers really do work. Thanks to one of your recent promotions, for example, we flew to San Francisco on short notice even though we had just visited there less than three months ago.

Please keep the emails coming.

Sincerely,

Last Saturday, May 7, we flew to San Francisco and came back Wednesday, May 11. We stayed at the Kimpton Harbor Court Hotel right on Embarcadero, a block from the Ferry Building. The only annoyance of the entire trip was faulty Internet service at the hotel -- despite the best efforts of their IT support staff, their ISP did not play well with our older MacBook. We're back in Fort Worth now, so instead of receiving live, as-it-happens reports from the scene you will have to settle for an after-the-fact blog post and snapshots from the past.

A highlight of our trip to San Francisco back in February was reconnecting with friends we haven't seen in years, even decades. Because of an AA special offer (see above), we were able to surprise these same long-lost friends with "Hey! Guess what? We're back!"

We ate well this trip. In particular, we had a great Italian dinner at Firenze By Night with Val and Ron, and an equally great Peruvian dinner at La Mar with Jim. Terri and I also had our first ever In 'N Out Burger, at Fisherman's Wharf. In 'N Out is good -- we went back the next day, and are looking forward to their new location in Fort Worth -- but it will never replace Whataburger in my affections. California burgers tend to have a 'special' sauce that is really runny Thousand Island dressing, which to me is not very special at all.

The weather was gorgeous the entire time. By 'gorgeous' I do not mean 'pleasant' but really gorgeous: bright sunshine, an occasional puffy cloud, crisp winds, and temperatures in the 50s and 60s. Just standing around and breathing in this climate gives one a sense of inner well-being and contentment.

We bought transit passes. When we buy transit passes, we make sure to get our money's worth: we rode both running cable car lines end to end (the California line is down for repairs), streetcar F from end to end (Fisherman's Wharf to Castro), and buses here and there. One of the greatest pleasures of traveling, for me, is riding public transportation in cities with good systems. I don't care much where we go so long as I get to hop on a bus, streetcar, or subway. (Note, however, that San Francisco Muni bus route #18 really sucks.)

Thanks to Val and Ron, we got a tour of some scenic highlights: the Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Point; Lincoln Park, Cliff House and the Pacific Coast; lunch at Beach Chalet and a meander through Golden Gate Park; a drive up Twin Peaks with an overlook of the Bay; and Alamo Square and the Painted Ladies. Gorgeous, all of it.

We also did some exploring on our own. The City Hall is so gaudy it's suitable for burying Napoleon. Westfield San Francisco Centre (a pretentious way of saying 'shopping mall') is so huge we never found the food court. The de Young Museum is so cool you won't mind getting lost inside.

And now it's time for snapshots. Some of the snapshots refer to places and events discussed in the blogpost. Some of the snapshots are not referenced in the blogpost at all. Not everything in the blogpost has a corresponding snapshot.

With those caveats in mind, here's my Flickr photos from this trip to San Francisco. Or, if you prefer a quasi-filmic experience, the slideshow version.