Ferry Dreaming

Last Thursday afternoon was gloomy in San Francisco, so on a whim I bused to the Ferry Building, bought a sandwich at Acme Bread, and ran for a ferryboat to Larkspur just for the hell of it.

I was also hoping the sun would appear in Marin County, and those hopes were fulfilled, even leaking over to San Francisco on the return.

Ferryboats are my favorite means of transportation, and I would love to explore the world documenting them...

...everywhere from Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean.

In the meantime, a new ferry terminal at the Berkeley marina is being proposed, and though neighbors are of course objecting, it's a wonderful idea. Every town on San Francisco Bay should have a docking station of some sort, and in a perfect world there would even be connecting public transportation. I have a dream.

Mexico City Morning

We walked to the main drag of Mexico City, Paseo de la Reforma, this morning and were astonished to find that tens of thousands of bicyclists, rollerbladers and joggers had taken over the street while pedestrians walked alongside on wide sidewalks. We had stumbled onto Muévete en Bici, a car-free event on 55 kilometers of downtown Mexico City streets every Sunday from 8AM to 2PM. The separation of pedestrians (slow) and bicyclists/joggers (fast) made the whole event work in a way that San Francisco's occasional Sunday Streets do not.

Our destination was the Museo de Arte Moderno in Chapultapec Park...

...which was one of the most beautifully designed, medium-sized art museums I have ever encountered.

There was a special exhibit devoted to Remedios Varo, the Spanish surrealist who fled Nazi Europe for Mexico City where she worked until her death in 1963.

More impressive was their permanent collection of Mexican artists from the first half of the 20th century, including the great Juan O'Gorman's 1949 La Ciudad de México...

...and David Alfaro Siqueiros's 1947 El diablo en la iglesia (The devil in the church)...

...along with José Clemente Orozco's frighteningly pertinent 1947 El tirano (The tyrant).

There was even a sweet 1953 Naturaleza muerta by Frida Kahlo to complement her 1939 keystone masterpiece in the collection, Las dos Fridas.

The painting traveled to SFMOMA in 2008 (which I wrote about here), but it was in a crowded, poorly designed Kahlo retrospective. At the Museo de Arte Moderno, the painting is given its own dark room which is hidden in plain sight so it remains uncrowded. There was a comfy bench to rest on in front of the painting, and some people sitting on the floor. Everyone was quiet as if we were all communing with a holy shrine. It was one of the great art museum experiences of my life.

Across the Paseo de la Reforma was the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo devoted to contemporary Mexican art.

The wild, wonderful architecture was more interesting than most of the exhibits. However, like the Museo de Arte Moderno, admission is free all day for everyone on Sundays, yet another example of how much more progressive Mexico is feeling these days in relation to the regressive United States.

We have been staying in the touristy, upscale Zona Rosa section of town but finally found a great, autentico Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood filled with locals. What made it even better was that the majority of workers and customers were gay, but we also saw cops, friends and lovers of every persuasion eating and drinking there.

I'm not going to name the place because United States hipster expats have been invading the city for the last decade and I don't want to add to the despoliation. Let's just say it's close to the Insurgentes metro station.

Austin finished the day's adventure at CHU-CHO, a dessert parlor that has put chocolate, ice cream, and churros together. As their signage states, "Un churro cada dia le da alegria" (a churro a day brings happiness).

Ferryboats of the Pacific Northwest

I am inordinately fond of public ferryboats and last week traveled on a trio of them in the Puget Sound.

Starting off from the downtown Seattle waterfront, there was a large car ferry to Bainbridge Island, which adjoins the Olympic Peninsula.

My younger sister Hilary left her lifelong Central California homestead for Port Townsend, Washington a couple of years ago, and it was time to visit her new world. The small town on the tippy-top northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula is quite charming, and sister Hilary had managed to get us invited to stay at a friends' temporarily empty house which had a magical garden.

Fifty miles to the west, Port Angeles hosts the M.V. Coho, a huge ferryboat built in 1959 that travels north to Vancouver Island.

We passed through half a dozen microclimates crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca into Canada.

The Inner Harbour of Victoria, British Columbia's provincial capital, was as strikingly beautiful as rumored...

...and from our hotel room we watched tiny water taxis nearly being run over by a constant succession of floatplanes.

We also took tour buses to the Burchart Gardens north of town but summer mass tourism, augmented by the arrival of three different cruise ships, made the 50 acres of gardens feel like Disneyland on a summer weekend.

We returned to the United States on the M.V. Coho...

...and took a detour to Lake Crescent in the Olympic National Forest.

Lake Townsend also hosts a 30-minute car ferry to the nearby Whidbey Island, which we intended to explore by vehicle. However, we arrived to discover that one of the vessels had broken down so a lineup of cars and trucks with prior reservations was backed up for hours. So we jumped on as pedestrians and had lunch in Coupeville at the one restaurant near the landing. It was ferry bliss.

I Sing The Caltrain Electric

After many years of construction, weekend shutdowns, and political maneuvering, the Caltrain system servicing the Peninsula has finally been electrified.

To celebrate the accomplishment, free rides were offered to the public at all stations last weekend from San Francisco to Gilroy.

According to Philip Rohrbough: "This model is called KISS. I love the German language, and this acronym is a classic: Komfortabler Innovativer Spurtstarker S-Bahn-Zug. They were built by Stadler, a Swiss company, in Salt Lake City."

I miss the old-fashioned funk of the previous carbon-burning trains, but won't miss the slowness and bumpiness and constant breakdowns.

Brian Barneclo's 2011 System mural near the San Francisco station is still impressive, even covered in graffiti.

One thing that hasn't changed are the many passengers immersed in their virtual worlds...

...while ignoring natural wonders like the Brisbane Lagoon.

There was an afternoon celebration near the station in downtown San Mateo, with politicians making speeches...

...to huge crowds looking for giveaways at various booths.

At least it was heartening to see Brian Barneclo's mural from 2017 has fared better at its San Mateo location.

Public Transport to Petaluma

To escape the summer grey of San Francisco, we made a day trip to the Sonoma County town of Petaluma.

There is a Golden Gate Transit bus that will take one there, but what's the fun in that?

So we boarded a Golden Gate Transit ferryboat to Larkspur on Wednesday morning, testing out the new boat-train combo connecting San Francisco to Marin and Sonoma Counties.

The gorgeous trip on a high-powered catamaran takes about 30 minutes, and according to a crew member on the ferry, a new shuttle van would whisk us the half mile from the ferry to the SMART commuter train station.

There was no shuttle van apparent when we arrived at the ferry terminal, though, only a bit of misleading signage pointing pedestrians in the wrong direction.

We had taken this trip before to Santa Rosa so knew how to navigate our way across wide boulevards, jaywalking when necessary, and then climb up a shared automobile/bicycle roadway to the new SMART train terminus.

As often happens with car-centric suburban planners, the needs of pedestrians usually come last, if they are considered at all.

SMART, the new commuter train that stretches from Larkspur Landing to the Santa Rosa Airport is a smooth, modern marvel that goes through scenic marshes, foothills, and the occasional backyard.

To add to the pleasure, 65+ seniors ride for free, and on Wednesday there was a charming conductor keeping order and helping out with directions.

From the Petaluma station, it's about a 10-minute walk to downtown Petaluma which has a river running through it lined by restaurants with outdoor patios.

We tried out the fancy Luma Bar & Eatery which turned out to have lovely food and surprisingly unpretentious prices.

On our return to Larkspur Landing, we finally spotted the orange shuttle van to the ferry terminal in a nearby parking lot, but it turns out you have to download an app and reserve a ride in advance if you want to use the service. This struck us as absurd, especially since nobody on the boat or train was aware of that particular wrinkle.

We decided to try following the signage to the ferry terminal which took us over a bridge crossing several boulevards and freeways, in a direction opposite to the actual terminal.

To add possible injury to insult, the pedestrian path is also shared by bicyclists, many of whom seem to be in training for the Tour de France.

Pedestrian irritation aside, the trip was delightful.

And the boat ride back to San Francisco was fabulously wild.