Boats, Beaches, and the San Francisco Bay

Here's Aviva looking windblown but lovely as we walk along the beach at Fisherman's Warf. We were both thrilled to be wandering around the city in tank tops. It's still going to be several months before we can do that in Rochester, which also means returning to upstate New York will be very depressing. Mind you, that's a given after spending two weeks in San Francisco. I actually followed what turned out to be ill-founded advice when packing for this trip. Everyone warned me that San Francisco can be quite cool this time of year. As a result, I packed light sweaters, jeans, and boots. So, when the temperature hit 80 degrees Fahrenheit, I headed over to Old Navy to buy inexpensive tank tops, long-sleeve t-shirts, and flip-flops. Next time, I'll follow the oh-so-wise Aviva and pack layers, lots of layers. Oh well. The packing mishap gave me an excuse to buy a few bright coloured tops that might make me look like a sign of spring even if there is still snow on the ground when I return to Rochester.

I suspect this boat is not sea worthy. Even so, I couldn't resist jumping into the little vessel as we walked past.

That's Coit Tower in the background. Eventually, we scaled telegraph hill and then went to the top of the tower. As you can see, it was a bright, beautiful day that afforded a great view of the city.


The view from Coit Tower

Also, once we got to the top of the tower and looked over to Lombard street, where we'd started our trek after descending from the Powell St. cable car, we realized we'd walked an insane distance. Suddenly, fatigue set in and we decided to take a bus home. Unfortunately, the bus never came, or we were just too impatient to wait long enough for it to arrive, and we ended up walking all the way back to our hotel.

After more than a week of touring, Aviva headed back to Rochester. I stayed in San Francisco for another week in order to attend a conference, The Conference on College Composition and Communication. I gave a paper part way through the conference and it seemed to go well. Composition theory is far from my area of expertise, unlike my other panel participants, but I still found it to be very productive. I particularly enjoyed two presenters who talked about how to help students find their own "voices" in writing while still helping them to develop the tools they'll need to be sucessful communicators. Their ideas were simple yet very thought-provoking. I thoroughly enjoyed the other panels I attended and I did my best to take in as many panels as possible. Unfortunately, a severe migraine put me out of commission for a few days. One conference down, one more to go.