We left for San Francisco in the late morning. We were sad to leave after having such a wonderful three days at Sacramento Loaves and Fishes. As usual, we stopped for groceries and water on our way. Early on, I learned that it was best to restock while enroute to our next destination so that we arrived ready to park and hook up the RV for the night.
As I expected, we encountered quite a bit of traffic as we approached San Francisco. However, that concern was somewhat alleviated by the wonderful views of the city and the bay. The trip was not as long as I expected and we arrived at Candlestick RV Park, the only one in San Francisco, in the late afternoon. We had been staying with friends all along the way, but couldn’t find anyone nearby who had room to park an RV, so we ended up at the park. It is a really nice, clean RV park with lots of spaces; they never seem to be full. Plus, the park was only six miles from our next site in downtown San Francisco.
Compass Family Services seemed like it would be a fairly easy gig. Just six miles away with a parking lot in back of it. Boy, was I wrong. Yes, it was six miles away but that was the only thing I was right about.
Since the workshop was scheduled to start at 1PM, we left at 11AM thinking that would be plenty of time. Well, it kind of was enough time. We found the address and headed down a small alley to the parking lot. After barely squeezing down the alley and through a small opening in a chain link fence, the parking attendant ran out to tell us that it would cost $60 to park there. Wow, that was outrageous and way out of our budget. I called our contact at Compass Family Services and she suggested another lot on Golden Gate Street. Well, I didn’t know the area and without an exact address, the GPS was pretty much useless. All I knew was the parking lot was on Golden Gate a couple of blocks from Market Street. So we eased out of the lot we were in and tried to get down the alley. However, two large box trucks were parked in the alley, one on the sidewalk and the other in the street directly across from it. It looked like there was only a few feet between them. Since it was a one way street and I was now blocking the alley completely, all I could do was hold my breath and try to fit the RV between them. And I did! To our amazement, the RV squeezed by with just inches to spare on each side. We lurched into the traffic, cruising around in circles until we finally found Golden Gate Street and eventually, the parking lot we were looking for. Although it was theoretically possible to park there, the cars were arranged in such a way that it was very difficult to maneuver the RV around them. After 20 minutes jockeying for position, the attendant came out and helped us into a space. Finally, we backed into a spot in the furthest corner of the lot, up against an adjacent building.
By this time, we were running late so we hustled up to the 7th floor of the building. After connecting with the staff, we all went back to the RV to haul up the supplies and equipment. We returned, went up the slow moving elevator and proceeded to quickly set up the room for the art workshop. Because we were now about an hour late, people were already waiting for the workshop to start. One of these was Peggy, an Ojai friend now living in San Francisco who stopped by to help. Since this was an organization that worked with homeless families throughout the city, several families showed up to participate. We all jumped into the art and everyone really went at it. As people completed their work, we interviewed them in an adjacent room. Some really great stuff happened and everyone had a fun.
With the assistance of the staff, we cleaned up the room and hauled everything back to the RV a couple of blocks away. Serena received an unexpected invitation to join her family in Santa Cruz, so her sister picked her up and whisked her away. Since it was a Friday night rush hour in the city, I decided to hang for awhile, cook my dinner and head out later that night. I left about 7PM driving south on Rt. 101 toward Santa Barbara. I didn’t expect to stay awake long enough to drive the 350 miles that night and I didn’t. Despite tea and chocolate, I couldn’t keep my eyes open much after midnight, so I parked in a remote section of a mall lot in Santa Maria. I turned everything off, crawled into bed and quickly drifted off to sleep.