Tasty Salted Pig Parts

The day was devoted to a quick tour of San Francisco, with Lynn, my three daughters, and my niece. We drove from Mountain View up the peninsula to San Francisco, because public transportation would have cost about five times as much for the six of us. We drove past billboards that advertised outsourcing services for Silicon Valley companies. It reminds me of the gold rush days, where the money was not made by the miners, but by the merchants and shippers. Apparently San Franciscans are still up to their same tricks.

We all six rode the cable car, which was far less safe than you might imagine, for it being billed as a tourist attraction. You are free to hang out the car and get your head lopped off by oncoming traffic. Everyone fortunately kept their heads on the way.

The next stop was the piers, where they have an old ferry, an old tugboat, a very old sailing cargo vessel, and a rusting lumber boat. The most interesting by far was the cargo carrier, with some exhibits on how the cargo was stored away in the boat to keep it dry and stable. It seems that hogsheads and burlap sacks formed the standard container of those days, and for its time was as useful as our containers.

Lunch was at Boccalone in the Ferry Building, where the highlight was a "salumi cone", which is a bunch of delicious deli meats formed in the shape of an ice cream cone. Fatty, salty, porky, and delicious. Which reminds me that somehow camping is all about bacon. It turns out that if you want to season whatever you're eating, you should just add bacon to it. Rice, green beans, eggs, whatever. We've gone through about four pounds of bacon to date. We'll go through more in the coming couple of weeks, I'm sure.