I puttered around the house until lunchtime, then finally got motivated and packed things up to leave for work around 2 pm. I parked in Montclair near the Women's Center at the bottom of the hill, then set off for Rockridge BART. This is one of my favorite rides for going to work. The first mile or so leads through lower Montclair, then the path turns and runs through Temescal Park and on along the border between Piedmont and Berkeley before arriving at the BART station. The ride into the park is a nice zoom downhill, and there's always interesting sights to see somewhere around the lake.

Today I arrived at Rockridge BART just *after* a west-bound train had left, so I was stuck waiting on the platform for almost twenty minutes. Good thing I have an endless supply of solitaire games on my Palm Pilot!

Arriving in San Francisco, I disembarked at Embarcadero Station, like usual, then rode along the waterfront towards Fort Mason. The curlique sculpture is in the grassy median just south of Pier 39. Surprisingly, there was hardly anyone about. I guess the tourists haven't realized that spring and fall are the best seasons to visit the Bay Area. I took advantage of the clear weather to take pictures of the the pretty views. The seals were being their usual lazy selves, sleeping and honking at the tourists for fish snacks.

After taking a few more shots of the cityscape, I climbed back on my bike and rode another half-mile or so to Aquatic Park, where I stopped once more to appreciate the fine bay views. The grassy lawn below Ghiradelli Square has been the site of many fine Fourth of July celebrations, with bands blasting music from a stage set up on the walkway/bikepath. Reaching the start of Fort Mason, I turned uphill from the bike path onto Van Ness and began climbing towards my mom's place on Francisco street. I stopped pretty much right away to take the 'pigeon's revenge' picture at left -- it was just too funny to ride past, but following that, it was a quick jaunt up and over to my destination.

Kirsten took the picture of me 'at work' just before I left to ride home. You can see that I'm wearing my Moonstone biking fleece (mmmm, warm!), and reflectorized tights underneath my shorts (which is why my legs look like black granite). 

The ride back was a gas. Traffic was pretty light since it was around 8:30 pm, and I zoomed down North Point to Embarcadero in nothing flat! I stopped near the intersection with Broadway to take pictures of the nighttime skyline, and another block further, to shoot the Bay Bridge and the Ferry Building. The construction barriers that you can see there are still up, six months later, as they seem to be gutting the structure and completely rebuilding it within the old shell.

Just inside the turnstiles at Embarcadero BART, I stopped to take a picture of C.J. Stokes. His repertoire seems to consist mostly of Gordon Lightfoot and Jim Croce tunes. Not particularly my cup of tea, but he seems to be popular with the commuters, judging by the spare change he collects in his guitar case. C.J. is pretty friendly too, and we often exchange hellos as I pass through the station (though I doubt he remembers my name...I found out his name just recently when he began offering a CD for sale).

A little past 9 pm I was back at Rockridge, then riding uphill into Montclair. At the entrance to the north parking lot for Temescal Park I stopped to take a bazillion pictures of the moon, since it was near conjunction with Mars. For some werid reason, Mars shows up as a green spot in the photos instead of the red hue that it offers to the naked eye. I've put several of the more amusing shots into the table at left.

The last image came from scanning a Polaroid Joycam print that didn't quite come out. Looking at how that image developed reminds me of Shel Silverstein's 1968 poem Boa Constrictor: