San Francisco was the near-end. Putting that awful LAX international’s terminal with its duty free options of only booze, cigarettes, perfume and/or fridge magnets, when it is actually open, last, would mar the awe of a great trip…

Let me not get ahead of myself.

Returning, after a 3500 mile drive across 4 States with over 6000 photographs of people, canyons and national parks backed up on my external hard drive, to San Francisco on an August 2010 morning, I found the sun finally shining on the Golden Gate Bridge in that city’s strange micro climate that forces you to leave your lodgings armed for temperatures ranging from 6 to 20 degrees Celsius, wind and possibly unexpected rain. This sunny phenomenon compelled me to take advantage of a final photo op first before returning my faithful little hire car before checking into my hotel near Union Square where tourists can be outnumbered by street people.

To mention the little incident with the taxi driver on the way to the hotel who made me remove my suitcase from the boot of his cab because I was not going far enough to his liking that had the next driver cop my 4-letter word choice, would also taint the fuzzy, happy glow that enveloped me, built up more by the roads travelled before I put the Sierra Nevada foothills behind me rather than the golden, grass-covered, rolling landscape topped by windmills with alternating cow pastures and fruit tree orchards bisected by wide, bouncy, concrete freeways that came after.

I found myself hungry and harbouring a caffeine deficiency by the time I had settled into my hotel. This took me diagonally across Union Square dodging tourists swinging cameras and self-satisfied, parcel-laden shoppers storming smiling out of the high-end stores surrounding the square, to a Starbucks…. I know, call me a Philistine and a traitor. I come from a place where said company, in my estimation, features lowest on the coffee quality ranking, but all through my trip this empire had the tables turned. I was in the land of the dripper coffee percolator. Coming to think of it: Is the presence of the number of espresso machines inversely proportional to the number or churches that can be found in an area?…. Just wondering, because Page in Arizona had only one Starbucks (I heard it said but could not find it) and no less than eight churches standing shoulder to shoulder on a curve in the main road entering the town…?

At least Starbucks was reliable. Like KFC the world over: You knew what you were going to get. On top of that, experience has taught that one can spend a fair amount of money finding good coffee, which can be further complicated and made more expensive on a road trip that takes you to a new town almost every day! Starbucks is no more prolific anywhere on the planet I have ever see than in San Francisco. A branch or two on every block in the CBE would not be exaggerating.

Why then, do I hear you ask, did I go 4 blocks from my hotel to this particular Starbucks if there was just round the corner from my own hotel?

Devine intervention I think now, and a need to stretch my legs. But I think the Travel Fairy wanted to rub my nose in the fact that I was back in civilization.

After my coffee arrived I settled onto my stool at the counter by the window overlooking the pavement facing the now all-covered-during-restoration Grand Hyatt Hotel across the road. Covered, just like my-good-fortune Pantheon-covered-for-restoration and dry-for-restoration Trevi Fountains were during my visit to Rome….  What is it with conservationists and restorers?….

I sipped my coffee and managed to release my potato salad sandwich from its packaging without the container exploding on surrender and releasing its contents with force enough to spread bread and filling over a one-meter radius. Munching away and wondering why a spotty-faced, dyed-hair street-person-looking older-than-middle-aged man would choose that spot on the pavement in front of me to restyle his hair, deflock his jacket and pretend to read his dog-eared magazine. Was I invisible or were the windows tinted to make me so?

Suddenly my jaw froze mid-bite as 3 entirely naked men sauntered casually past! It would not have been so incredible had they not appeared so relaxed.  They walked as if out on a stroll in a rose garden, their skins glowing gold in the afternoon sun. I remember one man was tall and slim while another was paunchy and hairy (reddish). The third was smaller than either of them and dark.

For some reason I instantly labeled them “Gay”. I later would wonder why I did that. Was it their manner? Their (un)dress? Was it the visit to the Folsom Street Fair a few weeks prior still fresh in my memory? Was it the Harvey Milk movie by association with the little sign-on-a-stick one of them was carrying that read: Elect (Some Person) as Supervisor of Ward 13? Did carrying such a sign qualify a nude walk through the city streets officially as an election campaign and/or publicity stunt that would make it legal? What were the ‘rules’ here?

Either way, how wonderful, I thought, for these men to be so self-confident AND for a society to be so free to make this possible. This was not streaking. There were no police whistles, no charging horses bringing mounted police and no squad car sirens approaching fast. It all appeared perfectly normal and everyone around appeared perfectly calm about it…. Polite society perhaps?

Yes sure, tourists were clearly agog. Many people whipped out cameras to take pictures while others were just too stunned to even think of doing so! One man crossing at the lights dragging a suitcase did shake his head in what looked like disgust and mumbled to himself. I thought I even heard him say “GOD!” from where I was sitting.

Like a lot of people I was rendered immobile. My camera was by my feet. I was not running out to get the shot. Would people believe me if I told them without the evidence, I wondered?

They were just going to have to. I was happy to believe that naked men walking down the street was the most natural thing in the world. After all this was San Francisco. It was where I wanted it to sit in me. This is where I landed a month before fully expecting to be awed…!

America did not disappoint. A beautiful country with its myriad of varied and sometimes quirky people.

This ‘makeover’ is a work in progress. A lot of my artwork has not been reposted here yet since the upgrade….. Please bear with me. I hope you enjoy what is here. Be sure to visit my Image Archives where more of the up-to-date stuff are uploaded. Thank-you for visiting!