Streets of Fire

Some things written by Jeff Kelley, a man in Richmond, Va. He likes aircraft carriers but doesn't really know the intricacies of them (weight, length, etc.)

Return Flight

I’m on a return flight home from San Francisco to Richmond. San Franciscans might wonder why I would require a flight to Richmond when Richmond is a district in San Francisco. It’s also a city in Virginia. It’s actually also a city in the San Francisco area, along with the Richmond district, which includes both Inner and Outer Richmond. My point is that I am not going to any of the three Richmonds within the San Francisco metropolitan area, and am indeed flying to the Richmond that is 2,883 miles away, in Virginia. There is only one Richmond in Virginia, by the way.

My new mission is to bring “The” to the East Coast as a prefix on highway names.

We took a hike to see the California redwood trees. After the prior evening’s events, neither of us were in any form to go on such an excursion, but we had to get out and see. But we ended up walking about sixteen dozen miles longer than we’d planned, most of it uphill. Muir Woods, a natural treasure with stunningly tall trees and sweeping vistas, quickly dissipates into a beautiful godforsaken hellhole when you get off the beaten path, don’t have water, and haven’t eaten in a while.

While in the woods there was a high concrete wall that reminded us of a scene from Jurassic Park. In our increasingly disoriented and tired state, we began discussing how the concept of injecting a bullfrog with old mosquito blood to create a dinosaur continues to makes perfect sense. We even began mapping out a business plan to start dinoMaker Inc. (might actually form it as an LLC) out of a garage, though the idea hasn’t really been touched since we got some food and water in our bodies.

After we finally made it back to the hotel room - and this will sound odd - Andy and I robed pretty hardcore.

Yesterday I ate: two pancakes, two sausage links, two eggs over easy, hashbrowns, and corned beef hash. Then there was about a five-hour break before we made it to civilization again. This kicked off an unbelievable triumph of human digestion: clam chowder in a bread bowl, a house salad, a 1.57 lb. Dungeness crab, a Double-Double cheeseburger from In-N-Out, an Italian sausage sandwich, two full bowls of Oriental trail mix at a bar, half a meat pizza, and two tacos. After I polished off the final taco, Andy started at me aghast.

We biked 18 miles from downtown, across the Golden Gate Bridge, to an In-N-Out for lunch, then out to a little peninsula bar witha view of downtown before ferrying back to the city. We made it to the bar at 1:30, were planning to ferry back at 2:30 or 3, then found out the ferry didn’t run until 5. This delay proved to be a blessing; 10 drinks later the sunset over the Golden Gate and into the Pacific Ocean appeared even more brillant and will go down as one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.

Then we ferried past Alcatraz which must be no more than 50 feet from the San Francisco shoreline. Those inmates must have been just the biggest pussies.

  1. spratt said: ahhhh you were in San Francisco?!!!
  2. jephkelley posted this