Intercepted! / Cubs Fans by Default / Quest for Shoes

This post has been updated/fixed, as there was some corruption earlier.

Walking along Fisherman's Wharf yesterday, we approached two kids playing catch with a Nerf football. They were only about 15 or 20 feet apart, and as we passed the kid facing me threw the ball. I reached up and shouted "Intercepted!" as I grabbed the football, then pulled the ball down and handed it back to the kid in the same motion. The kid was stunned, but his parents and everyone else around thought the whole thing hilarious.

Just adding a bit to the street theater.

Anyway, more stuff on yesterday and today after the break.

Last night we went to the Giants/Rockies game at AT&T Park. I did my usual routine when visiting a new ball park, walking all around the concourse level and getting pictures from a variety of angles. We eventually headed upstairs to our seats in the club level, right between home and first base, seven rows deep in the club section. Very nice seats that we got for face value off stub hub, along with the parking pass (by the way, it was as easy to get to and from that ball park as any I've dealt with -- getting to the game aided a bit by us being early and most of the crowd arriving late).

After we found our seats we went back up to the concessions to find dinner - a panini sandwich for Ellen and a slice of Abbondanza pizza (pepperoni, sausage, olive, onion) for me. After we finished those we topped it off with what is obvioiusly the signature dish at AT&T Park: Garlic Fries, a large order of fries covered with garlic and basil (and SO MUCH GARLIC -- there's no such thing as too much garlic, but the garlic fries put that to the test).

Anyway, the game was pretty good. The Rockies jumped out to an early 4-0 lead, but the Giants scored six in the second inning. Oh, and we were in the stadium full of people rooting for the Cubs to win that night, because the Cubs were playing the Dodgers back at Wrigley. In San Francisco, the Giants slowly padded the lead, and it was 10-5 when we decided to duck out in the middle of the bottom of the eighth. Actually, I'd intended to just start down and out of the stadium, but pause in or behind the right field stands to watch the end of the game, or most of the end. However, the way things are set up there once we hit the escalator going down from the club level we couldn't get back to the concourse, we were just shuttled right outside. That was OK, though, as there wasn't really much doubt left in the game, and we listened to the end of it in the car on the way past the stadium while getting out.

This morning we didn't have anything scheduled, so we slept in a bit. Eventually we got going and to the mall next to the BART station in San Bruno. I went to the Target to get some more batteries for the camera, and Ellen waited a few minutes until the Foot Locker opened so she could fail to buy shoes. See her blog for a bit more on the shoes, but we chased them from there to the mall at the base of the Nordstrom's in downtown San Francisco (attached to the Powell BART station, so at least it was close), to the shoe department of Nordstrom's itself, and finally to a sporting goods store "across the street". Well, it was across the street, but Ellen didn't get better directions than that, so we walked all around the block before figuring out which store they were talking about. At least it didn't turn out to be a wild shoes chase, and we found a pair that, while not exactly what she was planning to get, was suitable for walking around today.

From there we started to wait for the cable car at the turnaround, but it wasn't obvious when the next one would be starting off so we started walking instead. We walked up Powell a couple blocks to the Betty Boop Diner. Fortified, we again started walking and I managed to figure out a route that involved minimum amount of up-and-down hill walking (yes, it was up-and-down, but it was unavoidable regardless). We got to the Chinese gate at Bush and Grant, then walked up Grant street through the heart of Chinatown, mainly to absorb the atmosphere, though, yes, we also did some shopping. We took a left at Washington though another leg of Chinatown (this part lined mostly by restaurants), and then continued up Washington (UP being the operative word) to the Cable Car Museum. We spent about a half hour there and got a lot more of the history of the cable car system. I didn't realize it was quite so extensive at the end of the 19th century, but largely wiped out by the San Francisco fire. The museum is at the cable car powerhouse, so we were also able to see the turbines and watch the four cable lines spin.

From the museum we intended to take the cable car down the hill, but then decided just to walk to where we could pick up a bus up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower. Fortunately, the trip was pretty much all downhill at that point, and not horribly steep for most of it, so the walk was pleasant enough. We found the bus stop and waited about 5 minutes (the couple also at the stop said they'd been waiting about 15 minutes when we got there -- which just told me that the wait shouldn't be that much longer).

We got to Coit Tower, rode the elevator to the top, and got a number of goot pictures of the city and some of the Bay Bridge, though fog on the bat obscured Alcatraz somewhat, and the Golden Gate were pretty much totally lost.

We rode the bus back down the hill to Fisherman's wharf, where the plan was to do the souvenir shopping that we'd put off in past days. By this time it was getting fairly cold and breezy, and I'd foregone my jacket today (since it wasn't worth bringing most of yesterday). Before I got too cold, though, we got up the Ciopinno's, a restaurant across from the old Del Monte Cannery along Fisherman's wharf. Ellen got Salmon Linguini, while I had Fettucini Aglia y Olio (garlic, olive oil, sun-dried tomato, and black olives). Very tasty, exactly what I was in the mood for tonight. We then got to the cable car turnarond and waited for not-too-long in the breezy, cool evening. Cable car -> BART -> rental car -> hotel, and now we're settled in for the evening.

Tomorrow - Napa Valley. Something about grapes.