A slow start today. The weather is glorious and I was showered, breakfasted and ready to go early but decided I needed to finish the latest Patricia Cornwell book, Chaos. I NEEDED to finish it because it is the most annoying of all her books and I NEEDED to be done with it. She used to write quite good thrillers but her last 5 or 6 books have gone progressively downhill. I live in hope of a return to former glory and keep buying the damn things. Kay Scarpetta is the most self absorbed, arrogant, belligerent, pseudo snob character ever to grace the pages of a book and her husband, Benton may be a brilliant FBI agent but he has the personality of a brick. This story was just repetitive garbled thoughts and I was halfway through it before I could grab onto a plot line. By then I had to finish it just to see if there was any light at the end of the tunnel. There wasn't. The only good thing about the book is I've finished with it and possibly finished with Patricia Cornwell.
Anyway.... I finally made a move and spoke to reception to see how to get to the Amtrak station to book tickets to Crescent City for Thursday. She told me to exit the building and turn right and continue on for about 3 miles. Because it was daytime and because I hadn't really ventured out in the area around the hostel much and because she gave me the impression it would be ok to do so...I followed her instructions. Bad decision....I hadn't gone far before I realised the error of my ways. There wasn't just one or two drug addled people ......there were literally hundreds of them. I admit to being very scared. There was one woman passed out on the ground with open staring eyes. I would swear she was dead. The whole walk was in "your worst nightmare" category. After a while they started to thin out and I heard 2 women talking at the lights. They were scared too and had asked a policeman for directions and he told them to get off that street NOW and that it was an extremely dangerous place to be. We stayed together till we got to a better area and I'll not venture out there again.
At Amtrak I eventually sorted out travel arrangements. A bus then a train and then a bus to Arcada which gets in around 5 pm. Then the bus to Crescent City leaves at 5.30 but they guy said I might miss it but there's another at 10.40. What? About 10 hours of travel just to Arcada. My friend Angie from Crescent City called and will pick me up in Arcada. This is a great relief because the chance of getting there in time for the final bus doesn't look good. All transport I've taken so far has run late. I really don't mind if they run late because generally I've got nothing but time....it gets iffy though when you have connected trains or buses to catch.
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| This was outside the Amtrak station. I'm not sure if it was left over from Halloween or if it is someone waiting for a late train |
I walked for some time and ended up in Union square and caught the Cable Car and tripped around on that for a while. As I said, the day was beautiful so it was most enjoyable. The powers that be are in the process of erecting a giant Christmas tree in Union Square and also turning it into an ice rink for the coming Christmas celebrations. It's supposed to open tomorrow but it doesn't look close to being ready. Once they have it set up it will be great.
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| I never did any of these things ;) |
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| Fun way to get up those bloody hills |
I'm missing Derek terribly but I got my bulldog fix - this is Buster and he was just plain gorgeous. So soft and very cuddly.
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| Buster |
I heard from my friend Ben (from where I used to work). He is over on holiday as well so we met up for a drink and chat. Nice to see a familiar face :)
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| Ben in Union Square |
It started to cool down a bit so I returned to the Hostel to coffee and blog. Tomorrow will be my last full day in San Francisco and - weather permitting - I will get up early and do that walk across the Bridge and back....maybe. Laundromat in the afternoon and then re pack everything ready for an early start to Crescent City the next morning.
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