Fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog,

I need to come up with more words to my favorite song (see the title above), which is about my favorite characteristic of this city.

I think people complain about the fog, because they feel like they're supposed to or something. Seriously, this stuff is the best! I tried to find statistics about the foggiest city in the US and ended with somewhere in Virginia winning at 116 days vs. San Francisco's average 106 or whatever. Nonsense! If Baker Beach or the passage into the bay (the Golden Gate) were a city, it would CRUSHHH (with a monstrous Skeletor sounding CRUSSSSHHHH) Charlestown's or whatever-lame-names-city, VA's record.

Take for example, the last day of class last quarter, end of September. Sunny day. I can deal with it, but big deal. I ride the nearly straight line home, not a hint of cloud in the sky anywhere. As I come up to the last few blocks of Lake before I turn up the hill into the Presidio at 15th, I note the vapor coming over into the street several blocks ahead. Ahah! I turn up the hill, past the under-construction former hospital which is half enshrouded with visibly hanging curtains of mist. Halfway up the hill, at the dirt-road back entrance to the Baker Beach housing I plunge into the cloud and enjoy a cool gray bath riding down the hill, invigorated and excited to be home.

Another example, Wednesday of this week, I'm waiting for Emily to pick me up at school (it was raining that morning so she gave me a ride). The sun is glaringly bright and at the level of sight where it's just constantly in your eyes. OBNOXIOUS! We get a couple hot chocolates at Bittersweet on Fillmore just below the school and head home. I ask her to drive my bike-route home. Again, on Lake heading west along the bottom edge of the Presidio is a low-lying cloud just above the tops of the 3-story homes. We both heave a sigh of relief and start filling our lungs with cool fresh mist as we escape from the sun in the fresh cool grayness. So nice.

Right now the fog horns on the GG Bridge are playing their song and there's no other noise to speak of.

If there were still Native Americans around here, I'd guess they'd have, like, 150 different words for the various fogs that hit this city. Fogs with clear underneath, low-lying fogs very localized, the stream of fog that goes through the Golden Gate, the massive Tsunami-type fog that takes over the entire city, the Niagara Falls type fog that literally pours down the east side of the Marin Headlands next to the gate, and the windy fog that blows across the street 10 feet in front of you at 20-30 mph or just over your arm's reach as it charges up the hill. I tell Emily, I could live here in this neighborhood forever, half of it just to enjoy the fog and views of the Gate. The only downside is that while it's perfectly cool temperatures of mid 60's and overcast at our place, it's 80 degrees everywhere else. It's like going in and out of a cave (which is really why I like it so much, who needs shelter from this?)

Enough boring talking, here's more pictures and a video for you to look at. I stole all these from elsewhere on the internet.

Looking south. Our apartment is just to the right of the second tower.

This is one of the massive Tsunami fogs engulfing the city from the ocean. The bridge is just in the center right. There is a city somewhere under that blanket.

This is the weird one. The bridge/gate is just out of the picture to the lower left (the source of the band of clouds). The Marin Headlands and the Presidio act like a funnel squeezing fog through the narrow Golden Gate.

Pretty fog, great for pictures and posters. At the water surface, I guarantee the visibility on the right side of the picture is not more than 100 feet, yet the top of the fog is below the deck of the bridge (just 200 feet off the water)

I spent all of 5 minutes making this highly technical map for the geographically challenged. For perspective, my bike ride from Baker Beach to school is exactly 3 miles, 1-2 blocks off of California St. Note that the fog is thicker at Baker Beach, because it really is. That map is more accurate than NASA's best satellites. If you can't read the text, left to right the white labels read: Marin Headlands, Baker Beach, Golden Gate, School, Downtown (stupid MSPaint, stupid Blogger...)

The video's not terribly exciting, it's actually boring, but it's short and shows how localized the fog is around the bridge and the Presdio (if you didn't see the Presdio in the video, there's a good reason!). At about 35 seconds you can see downtown crystal-clear while the west side of the city is swamped in with delicious pea-soup. A delightful place to be!