Sunshine and the City

Yesterday Tsunami and I decided that it was a glorious day and we were going to go out and enjoy it. I woke up early with the sun shining through the window and directly onto my face. So I was up and about at 7 am. She and I took a stroll down to the ball park and back, enjoying the weather. It was too nice to stay indoors.

So after Greg got up and we enjoyed our waffle breakfast, Tsunami and I hit the road. We had planned a route from the Bay Bridge over to the Golden Gate. It was about 6 miles and we were going to make a brief detour to visit the little brother.

The walk was just suburb. Up the water front, past the ferry building and around the next pier. I didn't realize that there is a clan of ethnic people who take over the end of the pier for a day of fishing, as I often walk there on weeknights around 5 pm and have it all to myself.

The wind cooled down the sun and the water was topped with white caps. As we went further north, we reached the Alcatraz ferry pier and the tourists started in earnest. I put Tsunami in her sling as we passed Pier 39 and Fishermans' Wharf. I wonder what type of impression people have of San Francisco when all they see is that little corner. The street musicians, the faux facades and the abundance of stores hawking snow globes and sweatshirt branded with San Francisco are utterly non-representational of San Francisco and devoid of locals, except for the random jogger trying to get from the embarcadero waterfront to Aquatic Park & Fort Mason.

Once at Aquatic Park my blood pressure dropped, Tsunami was back trekking along beside me and we did a short stint on the beach. I'm trying to teach her to dig - much against all boyfriend & parental advice. She's a dog and she is supposed to dig, but my examples in the sand didn't hold much interest for her. Nor did my attempts while in the back yard of Dad & Cathy's house.

Oh well, we made it to Fort Mason, basked in the sun and the view and then turned in to drop by little brother and his wife. Tsunami wasn't sure about her cousins - Maggie & Zach. They are big. I wrestled a hello with Maggie - I guess big dogs can be fun. However, she get excited and my flipping her over while in a partial headlock did seem to release a bit of flow from the girl. Kate was lovely in not minding me causing a yellow puddle on the floor. We had a good visit. Tsunami got refuled by some of Kate's power bar and we were off again.

Once on the Marina Green, we placed a call to our car service, aka Greg and told him we'd be needing a pick-up at the sports store at Crissy Field in a half hour. He was happy to oblige. Tsunami and i picked up the pace, as we had 1.75 miles to go in that half hour. I was set on getting my little puppy to the beach so she could frolic. So we fast walked & trotted, Tsunami did the trotting, down the Marina Green, passed the docks and onto Crissy Field. I was joyous... but Tsunami was losing steam. I kept peeping at my GPS watch and saw that we had .35 miles to go (we were doing 6 miles total) So I scooped her into my arms. She seemed OK with that... but we did get odd looks from those we passed by. Here we are in dog central and I'm carrying my four legged friend.

Oh well, I know what I'm up to - I want to get past the bridge an over to where dogs can run free on the sand. Which is well and good, when there aren't sand storms that rage about 8 inches off the ground and blind my mini doxie. So, she was down, then she was back up in my arms again... more strange looks.

We finished the last 300 feet and paused to reflect on our long journey together. Tsunami gave me a little lick and tucker her head back against my chest with some air of exhaustion. I looked out over the water towards Angel Island. A flock of kite surfers was passing a pack of sail boats. The sun highlighted the foam on the water and the breeze was making my left eye tear-up. I felt the glow of it all and was so glad to have the day, the dog and the doggie death march. I hope I get another chance next weekend to do it all again.