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Day 12 [8/1/99]
From: Mt. Madonna, CA
To: San Francisco, CA/nowhere
Total Miles: 110
Sites Seen: Parv, Pacific Coast Highway, San Francisco, Pritzker House
Today's Entry By: John Raskin |
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| John and Rachel prepare to swim to Alcatraz. |
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We woke up on the commune, of course, and fed
rabbits, communed with nature and talked to Parv until mid-morning, when we set out on the
coastal highway to San Francisco. The views of the Pacific were beautiful and the highway
was full of bicyclers, but we made it to the city in time to miss our exit and drive
directly into miles of mid-day traffic in south-central San Francisco. Following John
Pritzker’s detailed directions, we made it to his house without issue and parked
across the street, narrowly avoiding some alleged water balloons allegedly thrown off some
roof, although certainly nobody was home at the time, especially not Adam Pritzker
and his friends. |
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Upon request, Adam directed us to lunch at
Pasta Pomodoro, which IS the Pasta Bowl, and we returned to the house to unpack and figure
out our afternoon. In the end, we spent the day thanking God we had our brakes checked
back in Chicago, because when we drove vertically up Divisidero, hit the highest point in
the world, teetered, and plummeted down the other side, we realized that somebody
accidentally built the city on a mountain range. If you are keeping track of the website,
please note that I was driving on Oatman Road and Divisidero Street, and I am adding a
photo of the brake pedal to my wallet collection. |
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| No, it's really steep...guess you had to be there |
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Alex, Rachel and I walked around the marina park and watched the Golden
Gate Bridge exist for a little while, which was exciting. We then watched Alcatraz not
exist in the center of the bay and repeated to each other "Was the Bay Bridge fogged
in last night? Yes! Ba-doomp, ba-doomp," which is a quote from the movie Sneakers.
We later got to drive on the Bay Bridge, although we never got closer to the Golden Gate
than we were at that moment, which was disappointing. When we
returned to the house we wandered around examining photos of their extended family, which
was remarkably similar to browsing through a Parker yearbook, until my cousin Lisa came
home and forced us to explain why it was entertaining that Ben Pritzker’s going to
Pitzer. We talked about family, school, earthquakes and how stupid we were to attempt 700
miles in the car the next day. When John came home, he reiterated the stupidity point and
I tried to explain how I ended up working for the government of Mexico.
We ordered in Chinese for dinner and discussed things that make us
cringe (we think it’s genetic) and tried once again to decipher the Stone family
tree. Apparently I’m a generation older than Adam, who is three years younger than I
am and is in a band. He writes some of their music, which Lisa says is really interesting
"once you get past some of the words." We also got to hear Sam’s English
accent, which may or may not come from Spiceworld, the Spice Girls’ movie. Sam
Pritzker became the second in a series of brilliant six-year-olds we encountered on this
trip, except for Sam’s a step ahead of Alec because he has the autographs of both
Bashful and Dopey. He also has a Beanie Baby collection and can quote the exact value of
the doll Katie Nordine gave me for Christmas three years ago, except that over the course
of our conversation its price fluctuated between $70 and $5,900. But he was pretty sure
about his final answer.
As Pritzkers fell asleep around us, we retreated to the basement, where
we watched Bewitched (bad Darren) and tried to work the VCR, which is hidden in a cabinet
along with a control panel that must control the power grid of San Francisco or something,
because they were machines we certainly had never seen. So we left it on television until
our eyes closed, at which point we went to sleep. |
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