I spent several hours on the telephone this afternoon with my friend Marc who is currently in California on business. When not working near Sacramento, he has been spending time in San Francisco where his friend Danny moved a few years ago. Knowing my affinity for the city, he has been calling me from various locations to let me know how cool something is or to get directions and hours of operation.

Today's call was to let me know he was finally embarking on a journey to Twin Peaks, to see the view of the city I recommended and to take pictures of Sutro Tower and the vista for me. As I joined in, Marc and Danny were heading south on Castro Street between 14th Street and 15th Street, where Marc expressed his surprise and displeasure that numbered streets while consecutive are not necessarily exclusive, as in this case where Henry Street comes in-between.

Acting as navigator, I launched Google Maps Street View and could see (basically) what they were seeing. Marc kept me apprised as to their progress naming off intersecting roads as they went. After heading down into the Castro looking for a photo shop that has apparently closed, they backtracked and headed west on 17th Street.

Marc reminds me of the stairway I saw on the map while planning this little trek last week and asks how to get there. To my knowledge, there was nothing special about it, a typical San Franciscan residential stairway connecting Ord Street to Levant Street, but Marc and I were both amused at the name Vulcan Stairway. As they ascended the stairs, Marc and Danny encountered someone who lives there. The nice woman said she is the oldest resident on the Vulcan Stairway, living there for some twenty-six years now.

Following Levant to Lower Terrance, down Saturn Street and finally to Temple Street, the duo is back on track, continuing on 17th toward Clayton Street where Twin Peaks Boulevard begins. As they begin the final ascent, I assure Marc and Danny the trip will be worth it and that little previews of the outlook to come will pepper the route. Passing Raccoon Drive and Burnett Avenue, stopping to take pictures as they go, they decide to take a page from my past and detour. Instead of following the winding path of Twin Peaks Boulevard to the summit, it is possible to climb up to the observation point on Christmas Tree Point Road if you are careful.

They made it without incident and agreed that it was worth it, albeit questioning why they did not simply take the car. I am told the sun made things more difficult for some Sutro Tower shots, but Marc did get some good ones from Twin Peaks, as well as of the rest of the city. I am looking forward to his return to Tallahassee so we can chat and look at the pictures. Having been a part of this experience remotely, the images will round things out nicely. I will update this article with the photos as soon as I have them and no doubt include a few new Sutro Tower pictures on its site.

In a final virtual moment, Marc had Danny take this picture of us at Sutro Tower together—I was saying "hello" over the telephone at the time. Better still, I will have the chance to relive this journey in person when I take my own trip to the bay area this year. Having been one decade since my last vacation to San Francisco following my graduation from high school, I decided recently it was about time.

The tentative schedule has me depart Tallahassee in the early morning on Thursday, 21 May 2009, connecting through Memphis—intentional after my positive layover there on "The Day Trip" to Las Vegas—and arriving at San Francisco International after 1100 PDT. I will head back after noon on Wednesday, 27 May 2009, change planes again in Memphis and get back home just before 2200 EDT.

To save money, I will be using my frequent flyer miles with Northwest Airlines to book my seats. I will have to pay only $187 to make up for the 5,246 WorldPerks miles I lack toward the needed 25,000. And thanks to the generosity of my friend Ernie, I will be staying at his Mission District apartment to save on a hotel room. With those two essentials taken care of, I can focus on saving for my time there. I am not going to get too excited yet as I have been here before, making and cancelling plans a few times over the years. There should be nothing to stop me from going this time though and as soon as I book my flights in the next week or two, I will know it is for real.

Sutro Tower fans are invited to visit sutrotower.org, the new gateway to my comprehensive feature article on all things Sutro. In addition to updating the information and links, I have reorganized and rewritten much of the text. Check it out and while you are there, feel free to share your Sutro Tower news, blogs and photographs.

In other news, things are back to normal after the web server suffered a hard drive failure on 01 February 2008. You may have noticed some downtime that day and night as the server was rebuilt. In an unrelated problem, I have disabled the search term highlighter because it was coloring text without a search performed. A fix for that and other issues are on hold for now, as planning for my vacation in March takes precedence.

That's a full lid.

Antenna art
by Elliot, Home By Six
Saturday, 31 December 2005, 2024

The Sutro Tower has fascinated me for as long as I've been in the Bay Area. I'm sure most people consider it an eyesore, especially longtime residents of SF who may remember Mt. Sutro before the tower. But I'm convinced it's the coolest looking communications tower in the world. (Not that there's much competition.)

So I was interested when I found a website called Mount Sutro.org. It seems to be somebody's blog, but offers quite a bit of information about the tower itself, and even a PDF of the antenna layout. This guy pushes right past fascination into obsession territory. I mean, he even has a custom Sutro license plate. And it's people like that who make the Internet a great place to surf. :-)

Happy New Year to all. Have some Death Cab, some Dan Wilson, and some Jim's Big Ego to celebrate the occasion. But most importantly, have fun!

Likewise, Elliot. I was extremely amused by your post. And I recently became aware of Death Cab for Cutie myself and have enjoyed their music as well.

During the course of my everyday work activities I happened upon the website for the world-renowned ritzy Japanese-owned Hotel Nikko. While browsing around their site I thought I remembered Nicholas Van Orton going to the Hotel Nikko San Francisco to pick-up his missing American Express card in the David Fincher thriller The Game. With that I decided to take a look at their hotel and in the process discovered something wonderful; something that only I am likely to appreciate (read: go nuts over).

Pictured below is a crop of a photograph they have posted of one of the rooms.

The unobstructed window view allows Mount Sutro and Sutro Tower to prominently dominate the skyline. Now that is a room I need to stay in!