I spent some hours in the wind, at the Golden Gate… at Ft
Point, walking the water front along Chrissy Field. The Daughter and I were waiting to watch the
Iowa… the last battle ship… to leave San Francisco Bay.
It was not planned (our attendance, not the event)… We
started our day at the Legion of Honor, a SF Art Museum, to see the The
Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde 1860–1900 exhibit… but first I had to take the truck to the shop
to get a couple of tires… in the last 14 years or so (excepting the last week)
I have not had a flat tire… I have had tires that leak, but not a flat tire by
the side of the road, jack and spare tire flat tire… Last week I had two…
I am driving a new vehicle… not new
as in showroom fresh, but new to me… It is a Toyota truck, previously owned by
my father. Dad died last July… In the
post death reckoning, my brother took the house, I took the truck… there was
money too to make things even.
Initially, I left the truck in Dad’s
name, at Dad’s, now Dan’s house in Florida…
Last September, the insurance came due, and I added it to our policy,
with the truck “garaged” in Florida… My son was attending school in
Jacksonville, and used it while in school.
He graduated at the end of March,
and drove the truck west, towing a U-haul trailer with our stuff… His diving
equipment, and the stuff we (T & I) got took from Dad’s now Dan’s house…
Once in California, initially, we parked it… but about
10 days ago I needed a truck to move some stuff about at work and started to
drive it… I am trying to figure out if it is something I want to keep… It is
not what I would have purchased… It has an automatic transmission… I don’t like
automatic transmissions, preferring a manual stick shift. It has a bigger engine than I like (My Escape
has a 2 liter, I own 2 Fiat 850s… as in 850 cc engines.. less than a litter ) Big
engines use more fuel… It isn’t a 4 wheel drive… It has a 6’ bed… good for
pigeon crates, but too small for a sheet of plywood.
But, I am giving the truck a try…
Monday, a block from work, I picked up a lead tire weight in
the center of the left rear tire… I heard it when it impaled itself into the
tire… It stuck out a full inch and went whack, whack, whack… as I drove slowly…
I parked at my office, with the tire still holding pressure, but two hours
later it was dead flat…
I pulled out the jack and the vinyl bag of tools that all
new cars come with, and found that the cheap lug wrench wasn’t up to the task
of breaking the lug nuts, likely installed with an air wrench off… I called AAA…
the auto club, and the yellow truck came and the nice man equipped with professional
tools removed the flat tire and installed the spare…
The truck has a “low tire pressure “ warning light… that light
immediately lit, suggesting that something associated with the spare tire would
not read pressure… But Friday, while
driving to work, the other rear tire went down… flat… dead… If I was driving the Escape, I would have my
tools… a better jack, a cross wrench, a jump box, and an air compressor… but I
was driving the truck, with a dead tire with a tire weight impaled in the tread
in the bed, and no spare… I was screwed…
(I never found the wound in the second tire but a dry wall screw would be
likely, so I was likely screwed on several levels.) Luckily the Daughter was on summer break, and
I was able to have her bring me my portable compressor from the Escape… But
when you are thoroughly screwed, (as I was) nothing is easy… The Escape of
course was locked… I had one key (with me) and the wife, at work (as in not at
home) had the other… Steph (aka the
daughter) went to Google to get the key, then home to get the compressor, then
to Ardenwood to deliver said compressor…(before heading o the zoo to play with
penguins)
The compressor was able to re-inflate the tire… and I was
able to drive home… but now, I needed tires…
We delivered the truck to my tire store of choice early
Saturday, then went off on our planned adventure… To the Legion of Honor to the
exhibit on Victorian beauty… It was a
good exhibit, but I may have said that before… It closes June 17th,
so if this interests you, you should make plans soon. If you do, make sure to visit the rooms
upstairs… they have graphic of Whistler’s
Peacock Room (now at the Freer Gallery in the Smithsonian)
While there, a friend, a Marine, the manager of our horse
drawn train program at Ardenwood texted that the Iowa, a battleship would be
leaving the bay today… A plan was
hatched… we would go to Ft Point to watch it pass…
Ft Point is a Civil War era brick coastal defense port. Ft Point is a part of Golden Gate National
Recreation Area… a variety of a National Park… filled with people wearing Smoky
the Bear hats… These are the good guys…
we discovered that the fort was housing an art exhibit… InternationalOrange, celebrating the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75 birthday. There were 17 installations throughout the
fort… A magazine “Average” bunting from the railings… films… a musical performance
set to film of men building the bridge… a weaving, of orange in fog… tent
camera photographs, Paper dresses, and our favorite the “International Orange
Commemorative Store (A Proposition)”… a gift shop, where everything was orange…
Including free orange post cards… all orange, some with boarders, some without…
orange, all orange. We explored and enjoyed…
It was an innovative use of a historic site…
It will continue through late October… It is worth visiting.
Having explored the fort… the exhibit…
We were killing time
until the battleship arrived… Steph was trying to figure out how long it would
be (it was originally scheduled to leave a week ago, so nothing is certain). Eventually we walked to Chrissy Field, in
search of food… but tomorrow is the bridges 75th birthday (I bought
the Tee shirt) and so, the local café is on event menu… a limited menu… so we
tried the hot dog cart outside…The Let’s Be Frank Dogs
Cart. Organic, free range meat… Acme
Bakery buns… we ate… we were satisfied.
We will eat here again… did I say
they were good? They have their own hot
sauce.
Out on the Torpedo pier…
a photographer was shooting shots of a race, the Master Mariner… an old
time San Francisco tradition, working boats racing, now wooden boats or
replicas of old boats… I crewed on one some years ago… It was a wonderful
diversion while waiting for the battleship…
Eventually the battleship appeared from behind Angle Island… We watched from the pier… then, as she
cleared Angel Island, we walked back to the fort and climbed to the top level…
and watched, and took photos as the last
battleship, the Iowa left San Francisco Bay for Los Angeles, and her new role
as a museum... There was a fire boat, there was a fly-by by a couple of F-18’s…
there as a black helicopters circling presumably taking pictures. We are back to black helicopters…
As she, the Iowa, cleared the bridge, my camera battery died…
we headed down, to the car, to head south to Redwood City to reclaim the truck,
which no longer had flat tires…
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