Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th September 2008: Into the Streets of QUEER San Francisco

YAP ! We've done the loop -2600 miles when we return Petras finerunning Honda Shadow to DubbeljuWolfgang in San Francisco. What a trip for a newbie on the bike - and how well she did it ! Crossing Golden Gate into Yosemite, King's Canyon to Sequoia National Park, east on Route 66 to fly the helicopter in Grand Canyon, via Route 66 back to Las Vegas, in an out boiling hot Death Valley, crisscrossing the mountains over Sherman Pass to run up Highway 1 back into Frisco - guess some longtime bikers at home might ask themselves now, why they haven't done it yet. Time to do it NOW, folks ;-)
Returning back the bike on Saturday morning we hit the streets of San Francisco to see some more of the town , do some shopping and have a decent dinner in one of the seafood places along Fishermans Wharf. Not without another funny story.
While the pretty stressed and even more obese waitress tries to explain to us, that I cannot sit the way I sit on the table next to Petra, I friendly ask her why not. There is quite an empty restaurant and ways enough space to even fit 3 of her enourmous oversize. Having no real argument against me she decides to call the"manager" of the place. He than starts the ususal liabilitynonsense and explains me , I was blocking a firerescueway !!!!
We just can't believe it anymore and burst out laughing - and while I ask him, if there's already some smoke to be seen anywhere - we just get up and leave that scene to find ourselves a nicer place for our last dinner.

The next early morning I take my sweetheart to the airport for a sad and happy goodbye.
Sad because we have to leave each othernow, but very happy for the wonderful time we shared, letting Petra become part of this unique trip - and even more happy as we know :
It will not be for very much longer so.

I keep walking through the streets of San Francisco for the rest of Sunday - and by chance hit one of the most different events you can come across here: The Folsom Street Fair.
Being pretty much a part of gay pride San Farancisco it turns out to be the meeting place of the most tolerant as well as some of the weirdest characters I have seen so far.
Not all what you see there is suitable for the blog - get some (pretty tamed) impressions - and believe me there is tougher pictures available.

The fair rages on inside and outside the various clubs and bars along Folsom Street - hard to believe this will be a back to business street in just a few hours - the police watching scenes that would most likely bring you up with a decent sexual offence record any other day.
Yet this is what makes San Francisco so special in the US -its tolerance .Well worth thinking about one's own limits towards others.

I have seen enough and decide to return home, when I meet Joe Smith.
He is one o the guys you frequently see in town, collecting alloycans and plastics from the garbagebins in town.

When I ak him about his life and why he is doing what he is doing- i get one of these shattering stories only life itsef can create. His mother and his wife dying in his arms within just 6 months and the real estate crisis shaking his life like an earthquake he is out on the street now - with a highschool degree in mechanics and still too proud to steel or beg he tries to make it back into life he honest way. Collecting two pounds of plalstic earns him 92 cent, the same in alloy makes 1 $ 57 cents . We talk for a longtime and it is a warm and hugging goodbye to this great person - we both learned a lot on this.

Hey Joe - you will make it back -
remember your brave and big heart
when you read through this !

Baba (a bit sad for Petra having left, but onward bound to head east now from tomorrow)