WHERE ARE WE? NUMERO UNO.
Is this the Golden Gate Bridge? Holland West? Well I don’t know if you trust me now after the previous bridge debacle, but yes this windmill is in sight of a big rock carved with the inscription: Golden Gate Park. The good wooden shoe wearing folks had a spare wind mill years ago and sent it to San Francisco. Did you know there was a windmill at the gate to the Golden Gate park? Well, neither did I. Let alone two of them. There is this one, The Dutch Windmill and evidently The Murphy Windmill at another gate. Did not see that one. Was it folded back into a wall like a Murphy Bed mayhaps?
WHERE ARE WE? NUMERO DUE.
We all know ‘There is No Place Like Rome’. But Rome, Italy this is not – as maybe the license plate gives away. Strangely enough this is a hundred year old exhibition grounds in San Francisco. Where? Hmmm. I’m turned around again, but think it is near the big park south of the bridge. OK, just Googled it. Palace of Fine Arts on Richardson Street at the end of North Point. In my mind it is not too far from the jaw dropping Pacific Heights. I thought I’d seen everything till I saw Pacific Heights with its extreme hillside stacked straight up to the sky with gazillion dollar mansions bigger than embassies – one on top of the other. Never ever seen such amazing opulence go on and on. Miles and miles of million and billionaires I suspect because really tiny bungalows in Berkley seem to routinely sell way over their half a million dollars asking price, so who on earth knows what these beauties run here in Pacific Heights. Yes, we did look in real estate offices windows. No, we’re not moving unless that Power Ball thing kicks in. All I could think was ‘Shaazaam would you look at those buildings, Sarge?’
WHERE ARE WE? NUMERO TRE.
San Francisco is also justly famous for its streets of Victorian ‘Painted Ladies’ and we saw boodles of them in every part of town I could just sit and look at them for ages but we were flying by and most of my shooting was drive by. OK, but this is a test. Which one of these random houses was in San Francisco and which one was in Iowa? Answer in next issue.