There she goes.....

Rosie did GREAT coming in somewhere in the 20's for women finishers and definitely in the top 100 because...SHE GOT A PIE!!!!!!!!!!

Warming up for the Pie Race

Brent and Rosie ran 6.2 miles this morning in the Signal Mountain Pie Race. The first 100 runners win an apple pie! There were 199 runners. It was cold!

More of biking to the ocean...

Dim sum and B's Oysters!

Brent downloaded his other camera....thought you might like to see some examples of Dim Sum and Brent's oysters and lamb sausage!

Biking to the Pacific

Despite our prior visits, we had never explored Golden Gate Park. Maybe I had assumed it is the area around the Golden Gate Bridge itself, which is park-like, but it is not. It is a rectangular property that is about 6 miles long and maybe 3 miles wide that goes from the middle edge of San Francisco to the Pacific. It was turned into a garden pretty much through the efforts of one man who began to plant rhododendrons and grasses that the other locals thought would never survive. He also began to reclaim land from the sea by placing sticks at the ocean's edge and allowing the waves to wash sand over them. As it did, he patiently placed more sticks. Over many years he created a beautiful park and the land over which the highway along the Pacific runs. On Wednesday, our last day in SF, Brent had his heart set on seeing the Pacific. Without a car, he decided we would take a bus to the area of the park and rent bikes. Despite a little difficulty finding an open bike shop at the start, we were successful and had a beautiful day...

Oh, San Francisco...biking to the ocean, walking along Haight/Ashbury Streets, riding buses with a wide variety of the human experience, street performers, an amazing Italian restaurant (La Briciola: the best waiter, patient and working to teach Brent Italian, squid ink risotto, crab with penne, cherry tomatoes and arugula, the best buffalo mozzarella I've ever had with prosciutto, tomatoes, and sweet balsamic...oh, my....tutti bella!!!!), a little corner Umbrian restaurant (where we gave a homeless man half our pizza...so many homeless...makes me sad...while we have so much...have always seen the most homeless on the streets of New Orleans and San Francisco....don't know if it is the local economies or the mostly mild weather....hurts my heart...we have plenty homeless people here in Chattanooga as Brent and I well know through our work at the Homeless Clinic...but....), walks along the wharf, beautiful flowers, the man I love........................tutti bella!

More China Town

Yes, look closely and you will see the chicken feet in sauce, alongside tripe and blood sausage in most shops...and wait...ONE, and only one, tall, blonde person!!!

Ever since reading all the Pearl Buck novels I could get my hands on as a young teen in south Alabama, I have loved the idea of steamed dumplings and rice....dim sum. We had tried to find authentic dim sum when we were in San Francisco with the kids about 7 years ago and hadn't really succeeded. This time we hit the jack pot. As you walk along in China Town, especially if you are blonde and on the main street, you are constantly accosted by women with fliers advertising various restaurants. They don't speak English, because if you try to actually speak with them, it is not possible, but they do know a few English phrases...."Eat here. It good." "Real good Chinese...down street 3 doors." There are also those who stand directly in front of the restaurant entrance and try to lure you in...."Eat here. Dim sum good. You like!!" One was so cute, and obnoxious, that I fell for her. So, Brent with a big question mark for a face, followed me in. Rather, up. Many of the shops in China Town are actually above or below the street level. In this case, it was up. Steeply, up...many steps. We made it, and were suddenly in a cool, quiet sanctuary...with high ceilings and open windows looking over the street below. Simple, but clean and nice. Ladies came by regularly with trays filled with fried or steamed dumplings, egg rolls, wontons, shu mai (little wanton wrappers twisted around a pork filling and steamed in bamboo steamers), pork buns (my least favorite...they are very pretty round buns of a rather doughy bread that may house a variety of things in the center...in this case pork from Chinese barbecued ribs...but they can also be filled with pickled fruits and jams....they may be very white when they are just steamed or golden and sticky when coated with some sort of sweet syrup). Anyhow, all these items are just a bite or two and each plate comes with 3-4 per plate. When you point to a plate or miniature bamboo steamer, the server places it on your table and stamps your ticket so that at the end of the meal the correct bill can be tabulated. It was really fun and delicious.

As we were leaving, the same obnoxious hawker was trying to lure two couples in. With my encouragement, reporting how good it had been, they headed up the stairs. Brent just shook his head. Hope they liked it!!! HA! We even went back on a different day! Yum dim sum! Just up the stairs. It good!!!

China Town

I LOVE China Town. There is the "main" street with all the tourist slog shops, still frequented by a zillion locals. Then there are the back streets that I adore. Butcher shops with roasted birds (chicken, quail, duck...all coated and dripping, some flat, some not) and huge 3 foot long and 12 inch wide stips of fried pork rinds, and chicken feet in all sorts of sauces. With the locals yelling their orders while the butchers hack the cooked fowl into pieces and place them in styrofoam boxes for the trip home. The fish mongers with live, dried, salted, and fresh fish...some I can identify...others not. The vegetable and fruit stands, where women jostle others out of the way to get their bags filled with the best and newest products. On my last visit, baby bokchoy was the prize. This time, a small fruit, which we watched on woman lift and give to her toddler, looking something like an oblong plum was the object of desire. I tried to find out what it was but could find no one who spoke English. All signage is in Chinese. What else? Oh, yes...the pharmacies...smelling old and dank and pungent with large glass jars of all sorts of dried roots and herbs. Can recognize various mushrooms, ginger and ginseng...but all else is unknown to me. There are the dry good shops with huge bags of dried mushrooms for just pennies, as well as dried fish, and huge baskets of what we finally determined to be dried sea scallops ranging from 18 to 50 dollars a pound depending on their size with the larger being the more expensive. I have no idea how they use them. I love the flavor and the mystery.