July 17, 2016
San Francisco
Galleries: Flight to San Francisco | Exploring San Francisco and Surrounding Areas
A couple weeks ago I made a trip to the San Francisco/San Jose area to attend a wedding of some of my best friends.
This trip marked a lot of firsts for me: it was my first time to visit the west coast, first time to fly across the country, first time to use the Uber app for transportation, first time to try the famous In-and-Out Burger, first time to see and stand in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, etc...
Prior to this trip, the furthest west I'd been was Fort Worth Texas. Flying over all the country for the first time is an experience that is hard to put into words. And doing it all in about 5 hours from 30,000 feet is a bit of a shock. Once you cross the Rockies the landscape changes dramatically, both in color and grandeur. The scenery becomes surprisingly brown/beige, and the landscape becomes surprisingly massive.
I couldn't help but notice that up until you cross over Nebraska, it's clear that nature is almost entirely crafted by humans. Flying over Nebraska it was impressive how square everything was. Everything was broken down into perfect squares of agriculture, the roads making a perfect grid for as far as the eye could see. But once our flight passed over southern Wyoming it was surprisingly baron. Here everything seemed barely touched by people. And as our flight passed from Nevada into Calafornia, I was amazed to see at the edge of the horizon a snow covered peak, which I later discovered was a volcanic mountain (Mt Shasta) that was over 150 miles from the location of my plane.
I was lucky enough to have a window seat so I took a lot of photos. And later using Google maps I was able to pinpoint the location of the photos I took. I made a map of the trip, and created a gallery of the photos from the flight.
San Francisco is such a beautiful city. The architecture was gorgeous in every direction. The temperature/climate was fantastic. I walked quite a bit Saturday morning until I spotted several iconic landmarks, such as the Transamerica Pyramid building with the Bay Bridge in the background, Coit Tower, and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Other highlights included: Hiking in the John Muir Woods National Monument and stopping by Google's Headquarters on the way back from the wedding rehersal dinner. It was a bit weird/surreal to use Google Maps to locate and visit the actual Google headquarters. We were also able to take in a Giant's game on July 4th. And afterwards I used the MUNI transit system to take a ride across town to see the Pacific Ocean.
Labels: San Fransisco, travel
