Lost In My Own Back Yard      Instead of a typical introduction I would like to start out with a disclaimer. I normally do not get lost, unless I get bad directions. I have always had a good idea of where I am in location to another object. I once navigated through new Corinth in Greece remembering landmarks from a trip two years earlier. That being said, I do sometimes get lost when I am with other people. And this is one of those stories.      It was in 1993 when I was a sophomore in College. I was taking a natural history class and on this fateful day we had gone to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. I have been to the Academy so many times I forget what we even were looking at on this trip however that is not important. What is important is the location of the Academy of Science. The Academy is located in Golden Gate Park. Golden Gate Park is four miles long, east to west, and one and a half miles wide, north to south and is located in the far western part of the city.      Having been to the park a million times before, I knew that to get back to the Bay Bridge, you exit on the southern side of the park, turn east and follow the street until you hit the freeway on ramp the street ends in (that stopped being true in 2003). If I was driving, we would have gotten to the Bay Bridge with no Problems and I wouldn't have a story. However, I was not driving. A young girl named Kate was driving.      Kate was not really sure how to get back to the bay bridge. She also didn't want to listen to my opinion of how to get to the bridge. I noticed that trait in her future husband too when I told him we wanted to set up a tent with the door to the wind and rain so it would mess up the sides. (We got swamped because the rain fly was hit by the wind and rain head on and stuck to the inside wall). Kate had the brilliant idea of driving straight until we hit water, get our bearings from there and find the bridge from there. This idea does have merit. San Francisco is surrounded by water on three of its four sides. Theoretically there was only a 25 % chance of going the wrong way. Furthermore, we would get a scenic tour of San Francisco.      This plan has one problem. There is no water in one direction. That direction is south. If we had exited to the north, east or west, Kate's plan would have worked. However, we exited to the south. A point which I told Kate but I was overruled by the other occupants of the car including her future husband. So we drove south. And drove south some more. After about twenty minutes it became apparent that we would not hit water. So we did the smart thing and asked directions to the "Freeway". Note, we asked directions to "the freeway", not Interstate 80, not U.S. 101. The person gave us very good directions to a freeway that none of us had ever heard of. Interstate 280.      We found 280 (sorry the 280) with no problems and got on. I decided to withhold my cry of protest that we got on 280 south until we reached a land mark where I could firmly say, "I told you so."      A week and a half later we hit Cabo San Lucas on the Baja California peninsula in Mexico. Cabo San Lucas happens to be at the very tip of Baja California. This was a planed trip though. Our class was studying the Natural History of Baja California and we had intended to end up in Cabo San Lucas. I did indeed point out quite vehemently that we were going the wrong direction when we saw signs for Daily City, the city south of San Francisco, and they finally did listen to me. I do think that getting lost in our own back yard was an ill omen for the start of a month long travel class. But that's another story. Guide Books |  FAQs |  Photos for Sale |  Travel Essays |  Links Contact info: