Sometime in 1999, perhaps it was August or September, maybe as early as July, I took a trip with my father to the west coast. We came to San Francisco. I know the rough time period because in July of ’99 I met the woman who I eventually married, and I remember this trip taking place shortly after we had met. I was reminded of this trip earlier this week when I drove to a meeting in Palo Alto. The last time I was in the Palo Alto / Menlo Park area, was on that trip in ’99.
As I drove south through the city and eventually on the 101 freeway, in addition to paying attention to traffic, I tried to reconstruct what I could from that trip – my first trip to San Francisco (and maybe only my second trip to California at the time). I remember we stayed in the city and I would swear we had a view of a Christian Science reading room or something like that. I remember that we were out here so that my father could interview his former professor who was living in Menlo Park. I vaguely remember the drive to Menlo Park – the hills on the side of the highway were brown, awash in the golden sunlight. Places like Millbrae and Burlingame and San Mateo weren’t as built up. I don’t think the biotech sector had taken root then. I remember the fog and how it tended to burn off by noon. I remember going for a long walk by myself in the city and walking to the edge of Chinatown. I remember visiting Fisherman’s Wharf. Out in the Menlo Park area, I remember hanging out in the backyard of a professor’s house (his name was Truman). He slow-cooked ribs on the grill. I sat in a chair in the afternoon sun looking up at a clear blue sky. I felt like I was in Tom Petty’s video for “Free Fallin‘” – a quintessential California song. I remember we had vanilla ice cream with slices of fresh peach for dessert. I remember killing time at one of the strip malls in or around Stanford – everything seemed so clean and sun-drenched and warm. The outside spaces are designed differently out here compared to the east coast – more expansive and open. I remember visiting Haight-Ashbury. I remember G Love was playing a free show at Amoeba Records, but my dad wasn’t feeling well and we had to leave. I remember that there seemed to be a lot of homeless young people hanging around the Haight.
I’d love to say that the trip left a strong enough impression on me that it somehow influenced my decision to move here these many years later. Saying so would be a stretch. I can’t say that I had ever really considered moving out of Pennsylvania until I got divorced eight or nine years ago. At that time, moving would have been to any place where I landed a job. I didn’t get specific on places until four or five years ago – and even then, it was geographically ambiguous (North Carolina, California, maybe Seattle or Austin). However, collectively, my half dozen trips out west (two to San Diego, three or four to LA, two or three to San Francisco, and one to Palm Springs) always made California seem attractive – and honestly, I’m a sucker for palm trees, sunshine, and more laid back, progressive vibes.
What I didn’t remember from that trip in ’99 was the traffic – or more specifically, I think back then I was too concerned about the mechanics of driving in the city and navigating a new place to notice the traffic. This was in the pre-GPS days, which usually meant print outs of Yahoo or MapQuest maps or buying a physical road map – all of which seems like a foreign concept to me now. The traffic on my trip this week, while probably no worse than any other day, was bad. The thirty-six mile trip took about an hour and twenty minutes going and fifty plus minutes coming back. And while the traffic wasn’t great (and I never seem to remember to avoid the crappy left turn onto the highway on ramp), It gave me a chance to think back to my first visit to San Francisco. It gave me a chance to think about the city I visited then and how it compares to now. The recollection was nice and had a hint of “surprise” to it in saying to myself, “hmmm, I wouldn’t have guessed I’d end up living here” or that this would all become so familiar. I’m glad it has.