The week before I was with Dave and his girlfriend and sister at Mount Palomar, Mike and I arrived in San Francisco the night before this picture was taken, a Friday. I don't remember what airline or aircraft we flew in on, but once again we took a bus from the airport to the downtown airline terminal. From there we hiked to the Americana Hotel, located just down from Nob Hill, I believe, where we had reservations. We ordered Chicken Delight for dinner, delivered to our room. Mike had fallen asleep on his bed by the time the delivery guy arrived, and I had to wake him to help pay for the meal.
Once we ate, feeling a bit more lively, we decided to hike around the city near the hotel that night. A year after Haight-Ashbury, everything seemed to have gone to seed. We even passed an attractive young woman who picked me out of the passing strangers and asked for money, not seeming to expect any. I stopped and looked at her wan, forlorn face; but before I could offer any money, Mike pulled me by the arm and urged me on. She sadly turned and faded back into the crowds mingling about that night on the sidewalks downtown. I still remember those few moments all these years later and what she looked like. She wasn't dressed shabbily, and she certainly didn't look bad, perhaps hungry. Like so many girls of that era, she looked like Katherine Ross from THE GRADUATE.
Maybe she was one of the thousands who had come to San Francisco, lured by the drugs and the promise of a Summer of Love. But this was a year later, and all of those bright promises seemed to have diminished noticably by the reality of existence.
With all of that having passed the night before, Mike and I checked out of our room, determined to hike as far in, and see as much of, San Francisco as we could this next day. We had our street map; and most importantly, we had our youthful enthusiasm and young legs to carry us as far as we wanted to go. Nobody was there to tell us what was possible and what was plain crazy.
I must confess that I do not have any pictures with Mike or with Mike and me on this hike. I don't know where they are now, but I obviously didn't include them in my photo albums. Somewhere along the way in my life, they disappeared. So you are going to see our walking tour of San Francisco from the perspective of Mike taking pictures of me.
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