Hanging out in Golden Gate Park; a Very Simple Guide

Let's conclude with home sweet home, this is our small balcony, Marieke, this picture is for you! As you can see, sun is returning to this side of the house (no fog yet...) so we can sit outside, enjoy the view and our beers in the sun again, using our 'bierplankje', a special construction attached to the side of the balcony which can hold a few beers and a bowl of cheetos. It obviously is time to return to SF again!

Friends, Food and Fun in the Park, what else do you need?

How to catch a ball? Just wait 'till it comes flying over!

And this is Melodi, member of the BOL gang for a while already. Looks like she got the hang of it...

And: Don't forget to Throw a Ball! Frank playing a game of catch in slow motion so our camera could catch up. Nice detail: the SF Giants cap. Wishful thinking or nice new future? Heard they just hired a very sweet & handsome pitcher...

Hihi! This wine tastes pretty good!

Be Prepared to Share; within a few minutes we had even more friends, one of Golden Gate Park's natives. Sadly, San Francisco has a lot of homeless people living on the streets and also in the Park. Last weekend we heard that 150.000 people in San Francisco do not have enough money to pay for food. That is about 1/6 of the whole population of the city! We were shocked to find out and immediately ran off to one of SF's small food markets to buy some canned food for the SF food bank which tries to distribute food to the less fortunate in this city. Tries to, as due to the current financial crisis the amount of food they are able to distribute is severly reduced, while at the same time the amount of people in need is increasing. We shared some of our food with a few of the homeless people hanging out near our picknick spot. We almost felt ashamed of our excess amounts of food.

Oh and apart from filling your cooler with all the Good Food and beers, you shouldn't forget to invite lots of Nice Friends to share the Good Food.

See? All the way down! Good thing we have a decent size car...


Some nice pics of our sunny neigborhood, the weather is getting better every week which invites for some nice picknicks in the Park. This very San Franciscan Thing to Do is based on a very simple concept; one buys a lot of food, wine and beer, one preps some nice picknick food, one fills up a cooler with all the Good Food and beers and heads for the Park. Simple, right? But here's the caveat; have you ever tried to drag a cooler full with stuff for more than a block? So just to be very American (hey we're just trying to integrate, don't blame us!) we took the car to get ourselves and the cooler down three blocks. It would have been quite a walk... Anyway, enjoy the pics!

Pinnacles National Park

And yes, I finally managed by buy some new sunglasses!




The stuff we bought at a number of outlet stores on the way back. Brand names for much better prices than back in Europe or even in San Francisco!

Our very friendly neighbors at the campground - we were able to warm ourselves at their fire at night, cause it was not particularly warm at night. During the day it was like 70, but at night a whole lot colder - no wonder, it is still April!

Our neighbor with his wild cat/mountain lion-like animal - looks like a regular pet cat, but it wasn't!

Back at the campsite eating real American hotdogs!! And this time not at the ball park.


Bird resembling a Blue Jay.

This is what it looked like without the flash on the camera, with just a flash light/torch.


This is where we climbed into to get to the caves.

Whose shoes are those?





This is where we descended - into the caves.







This is where we are.






Pretty tight as you can see..














By chance hard to see on the picture, but here are some eagles.




All sorts of stone types/colors.



There were rocks formations all around that looked really funny. Many of them were piled up like these - amazing they hold only a couple of miles away from the San Andreas volt!!


The last few miles into the park.


On our way to Pinnacles National Park the next day. It turned out to be a very beautiful day and the route there was absolutely awesome! Lots of wildflowers all around.

Our campground, near San Juan Bautista, right off highway 101, approx. 2 hours away from San Francisco. It turned out an interesting place, with nearly only fishers! Some of them were crazy to say the least, shouting every hour or so and taking off real fast to drive around the campground. Later it turned out that there was a fishing derby going on. On the picture above you can see the lake.

On the same day Minke and I headed due south, to test our new tent and go hiking in the Pinnacles! Although we only went camping for two days, our Volvo wagon was filled to the roof ;-) This summer we have plans to go camping for three weeks and probably in a much smaller rental by then - we had better pack our stuff more efficiently then! But for now, we had plenty of room and did not need to bother to pack our stuff tightly!

On Friday, April 4 2008 I (Frank) got my graduation gown and hat. I am due to graduate on May 17, 2008 (i.e., the ceremony) although our cohort still got a class in the summer and some other requirements to meet before we hope to officially graduate towards the end of July 2008. Anyway, for now here's a picture of what it should look like...