City Walk: Eureka Valley

We really have been in the Bay Area for selected parts of the summer, I promise. During part of that, Deborah was staying with us (before she abandoned us to move to Australia I mean) and one of the things she really wanted to do was go on a city walk with us. So to the city we went. Deborah chose our walk - Eureka Valley. The area sits on a hill, beneath Twin Peaks and right above the Castro. The walk was pretty long with some of the longest hills we've encountered yet, and easily the windiest day we've done a walk. This turned out to be unfortunate, because Deborah is in way better shape than Dan or I. There's no real history or fun facts I can give you about this area, because our book mostly talks about the Castro, and also Harvey Milk. I won't go on about Milk here except to say that if you have no idea who I'm talking about, I need you to go rent the movie "Milk" that came out last year. SO GOOD.

This is an alley between two homes, and is super cute, leading to a little neighborhood park. It's actually called Acme Alley, and used to be a path used for taking cattle across the city to pasture.

These are the Seward park slides, which were waiting for us at the end of that stairway. They are AWESOME slides. All the neighborhood kids have left stacks of cardboard for anyone to use, and the slides are super fast. We regressed a few years to play here for awhile.

Clearly, playing here is for serious.

Some of the hills here are so steep that stairs are built into the sidewalks. Not as a separate set, but carved right there into the concrete so that you don't have to lean into the hill like a crazy person while you head uphill. This is one example. Probably one of the longest hills we've done. My calves are burning thinking about it.

This is ONE house. It was built for $100,00 in 1872 and has 5 stories, 45 rooms, 52 closets, 10 fireplaces and 272 windows. It's now 15 one bedroom apartments.

You can't really tell, but the city is pretty much laid out behind us. Good walk team!

(Walk stats: 2.02 miles per Google Earth, 2 hours)

Up next: Saratoga Springs, NY. Weddings and horse races.