BOUQUETS TO ART

BOUQUETS TO ART
Today is Wednesday, April 21, 2010. Our field trip today is to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, where we will visit the de Young Museum. This is a famous museum known all over the country. It was founded in 1895, but damaged beyond repair by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and closed. This was the building that I was most familiar with, because Marie and I and family had made many visits there. The original building was demolished, and the new building was constructed. The museum was reopened during October 2005. The de Young and Legion of Honor are under the umbrella of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
We leave Quail Creek at 9:20 in windy-misty and cold weather - more like winter than spring-like. There are five residents along. Just beyond our main gate there was a hardy foursome teeing up. With our cooler-rainy weather, the California Poppies (our State flower) are still in bloom. Gas at Arco is $2.98 a gallon, and $3.02 at Shell. The Futures price today, for crude oil (May delivery) is $83.45/bbl - up $2.00!
Traffic on I-80 is moderate - east and westbound. We are passing the Mini U Storage facility, where I still have “unresolved” items in storage. Manny tells me that their monthly rate is increasing from $59 to $64. This should provide me with an incentive to sort though the stuff for final disposition!
It is a gloomy day. Even the green hills look sleepy. I don’t see any cattle having breakfast either. They must be hunkering under the trees. We are passing the proverbial truck load of hay heading westbound. We are passing through Vallejo. There are no cars in the Six Flags parking lot. The Park must not be open for the season yet - probably the Memorial Day weekend. They are advertising for summer help - some 1200 jobs!
Surprising that no one is playing golf at the par 3 course, in the infield of the racetrack, at the Solano County Fairgrounds. The Fair will be held in July, for fewer days than it used to operate. The horse races have been discontinued. The long range plans call for a Commercial Center - for all-year use - to be developed, which will incorporate a smaller fairgrounds. Freeway traffic bogs down passing through Vallejo, as the I-80 freeway goes from four to three lanes.
A sign above a hotel - “Relax Inn”! How can you “relax” in a city that has filed for bankruptcy, laid off numerous policemen, has an increase in crime, with a 50% drop-out rate in the local -public high schools? There are a lot of cars parked at Safeway. This is an encouraging sign - mid-week shopping. Perhaps the economy is rebounding. But, again, people have to eat. My economic gauge is probably not the best.
As we pass over the Carquinez Strait, I get a good view of the large body of water below. It is quite “muddy” in color, caused by the recent rains upstream. Tony has his windshield wipers running at low speed. We are warm and comfortable. Passing a CHP car sitting on the emergency strip, “monitoring” the last remnants of commuters. A few miles, and I notice another Highway Patrol car, parked under the overpass. I wonder if the two officers are communicating with each other? I see a highway sign - Berkeley 10 miles.
It seems good that there isn’t any graffiti on the sound walls, like there used to be. Cal Trans obliterates the eyesore as soon as it shows up. Too, the vines climbing the walls, have helped to prevent the “taggers” from access. From Albany, the San Francisco skyline is quite hazy, as is the Golden Gate bridge. Yet, they are probably only 15 miles away - as the crow flies. In Emeryville, the parking lot in front of the Holiday Inn is only about half full. I guess that this confirms the publicity that business travel is down.
The long lines of cars, waiting for the drivers to pay their Bay Bridge tolls, looks like a huge parking lot. The bridge is a workhorse. It supports 250,000 cars per day! The toll currently is $4.00. This increases to $5 on July 1. We by-pass all of this congestion as Tony uses the “Car Pool/ Bus” lane. The highway patrol has culled out an illegal user. That driver will not earn enough today to pay for his transgression. That’s what I like about our culture. Some wise guy is always trying to beat the system!
I get a good view of the material storage area for the new East -bridge span under construction (Yuerba Buena Island to Oakland). Originally, the new span was scheduled to be completed shortly. But like all major projects, there is always un-scheduled time slippage. And, time is money - BIG money! Now, the bridge is about five years behind schedule, and due to be completed in 2013. This scedule slippage has quadrupled the final cost estimate! (6 billion!). It will take a lot of bridge tolls to get that back. But, this is the price you pay, when you place the structural-steel contracts so far away - in China.
We are passing the new One Rincon Hill skyscraper - right next to the freeway off ramp. It must be at least 40 stories high. How would you like to live in the penthouse during an emergency, when the elevators are out of service? You had better be ambulatory! The large sign on the building says, “Now selling. Onerinconhill.com”. I visited this website out of curiosity. I was educated! This high rise- living quarters is 60 floors high! If you don’t mind height, the top floor penthouse can be yours for $14 million. (The building does have a pool!). If you can’t afford living in the penthouse, they offer one, two and three bedroom residences. They are priced from the high $500s to mid- $3 Millions. If you are interested, the Sales Center offers complimentary valet parking.
(To be continued) RCL - 4/23/10.