We bumbled into a birthday party. It was the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th birthday in San Francisco, on Sunday. Dave, Anne and I drove from Monterey to San Francisco. We stopped in Palo Alto, to shop at the Stanford Mall. Anne wanted to check out the Territory Ahead store. She didn’t find what she was looking for. We continued north to the Fresh Choice in Redwood. Once upon a time Fresh Choice represented the holy grail of salad bars. Time and the completion have caught up with it. It is still good, but it has lost that wow factor that it once had.

I recently read a HuffPo article that highlighted that Honolulu had displaced LA as the most un-drivable city in America. I swallowed this second place demotion by also picking up third. San Francisco of course won third place in this assessment and lived up to my expectations. We ended up decamping at a Travel Lodge near Fisherman’s Wharf, at Lombard and Van Ness. It was well situated for the festivities.

The Golden Gate Bridge was finished in 1937. Our house was built-in the same year. I guess that I should lavish gifts upon my house like the City of San Francisco has upon their bridge. I hope that a new roof, new gutters and a new awning qualify as lavish.

I heard a weather forecast for a record low on Sunday night. Mark Twain famously said that he was never colder than on a sunny summer afternoon in San Francisco. A cold arctic high brings clear skies. This makes for chilly, but perfect weather for the bridge’s birthday party. The evening’s fireworks show did eventually become fog enshrouded, but it was a gunpowder smoke fog.