I’ve started a new tradition (new? tradition? oxymoron!) of going down Columbus to the cable car turnaround, left at weird homeless aquatic park garden, then all the way out and around the pier, then back again. A new 2-mile loop! In the dawn it is really cool.

This morning was my second jaunt. I’m still fighting jet lag, and decided to just run with it. The hustlers outside of the tourist trap breakfast places haven’t hassled me at all, so I guess I spell “local” to them, or perhaps it’s because there’s no wallet on my person. The homeless guys are entrenched in the park- curled up on a little bench facing the water, sorting through trash, or this morning one guy was furtively peeing in the park near the turnaround. That park has such nice plants- lavatera, princess flowering tree– but the homeless have made it their own in their own special way.

One old Asian woman that followed me down from North Beach was checking out all the trash containers, but later I learned she was doing it to find bait. There are a ton of old Chinese guys fishing off of the pier. This morning I actually saw one catch a fish, a foot and a half silver fish, wiggling. He put it casually into one of those pink plastic bags and went back to fishing.

There’s only a few people out this early exercising, and I’ve already noticed one person on the same routine as me, she is known forever after as the “weird cargo pants girl”. Doing a run-walk on the same route as me, oddly enough. She is not a hello person, there are really only a few, including one guy who passed me from behind saying hello, which is kind of odd behavior, but friendly just the same.

A cyclist was distracted by this group of excericses on the stadium stairs, and she was heading right towards me, something I shiver just thinking about. We did the “dance” a bit and she yelled “sorry” after veering away a bit too close for comfort. I cursed her under my breath for, oh, about the rest of the walk home. Playing chicken with someone who recently had a head-on with a cyclist is not nice!

Sausalito was officially the only place with sunshine both mornings in a row. The fog in the morning is pretty magificent, covering up Golden Gate Bridge, Angel Island, alcatraz, Coit Tower, Transamerica, etc. Sausalito looks like a glittering gem when it’s the only thing reflecting light. Lot sof seagulls, and tons of swimmers out in the bay. Yesterday morning about five swimmers swam from Hyde St. Pier all the way past Fort Mason, a pretty magificent feat. I want to get in the water, but it’s just so cold on these mornings I can’t really imagine it. I’ll investigate some wetsuits.