Postcards from San Fran

San Francisco is a city that is packed tight throughout its center but open, based on its geography, at the edges.  The San Franciscan spends most of her time dodging traffic getting to and fro work and play, but for leisure places like Land's End, pictured above, open to majestically dramatic cliffside views and tend to harbor substantial patches of beach below.  The Cliffhouse, overlooking Ocean Beach, is an old salt bath resort where the wealthy would soak along the coastline in enormous concrete baths.

Here it takes no more than the crashing of surf against the seaside rock formations for entertainment -- maybe seal or the fin of a dolphin slipping by at the lower end of the window looking outside.  The great coastline trail follows the cliffside north, up towards Land's End, one of the places where locals go to quickly deprogram from the rigors of the city.

This day – the only one like it on a short trip – was of the standard foggy coastline kind, where the island rocks seemed to fade in and out of sight and barges arrowed through the fog hardly without notice.  For all of its luxuries and domestic offerings, places like Land's End are quick reminders of the extremely coarse and sometimes treacherous landscape that the city actually lives on.

Compared to how many people walk these trails and flock to the cliffs, its fairly obvious that San Franciscans prefer the crowded center of their city.