Our flight left at the unThomly hour of 6:00a.m. It was a confluence of events that led to that. It was a combination of cheap airfare, not being able to find a direct flight, and my theory that earlier is always better than later. My vacation time is at a premium, and if I could only wrangle four days, I'd make sure I spent as much time as I could actually in San Francisco.

Besides, I'm not always the best flyer and I have a lot of trouble sleeping on airplanes. I figured, if I was good and tired, it'd be a lot easier to sleep. Then, I'd wake up and be acclimated to the time change.

Colleen's parents who live near the airport and, since they're both nurses, are used to such early calls offered to drive us.

The flight was crash-free, just the way I like them, and we arrived in Oakland. (Oakland is darn near right next to San Francisco, and is very often much cheaper to fly out of. Little travel tip from Thom the Nomad.)

We went to our hotel, settled in a bit, and began to wander the city. And so began the Season of Walking. We walked this trip. And walked. We walked more than Jim Thome in 1997.

We eventually meandered to Fisherman's Wharf, where my travelling companions learned that San Francisco can be cold. Me? Oh, sure, I knew it was cooler in Northern California than in Southern, but what I learned was that it's occassionally good to pull from my mom's side of the gene pool.

Sure, there's the risk of inherited mental illness and the compulsion to work as many jobs as possible, but I also gained her resistance to the cold. A fact which helped out when we were taking our boat tour of the bay, and cruising under the Golden Gate Bridge, standing on the top deck with winds blowing and the temperature in low 60s and me in a t-shirt and jeans.

Colleen wasn't so lucky.

I also got to try out my new digital camera. I took many incredible pictures of the bridge, of Alcatraz, and of my chance encounter with Charlize Theron, and our night of passion afterwards. Unfortunately, thanks to an iMac extension conflict and clumsiness on my part, I deleted all the pictures from the first day.

You'll just have to take my word for it.

To be honest, the nation's most famous penitentary reminded me of my days at The Kubert School. It was a cold, soulless place with peeling paint and aging facilities. Of course, at Alcatraz you had your meals provided and actually had the hope of finding a date. Kubert offered no such luxuries.

It is a fascinating place to visit. Alcatraz, that is. The audio tour is superb, mixing in a bunch of commentary from former inmates and guards. They explained how solitary confinement worked, how terrible it was. One prisoner used to rip a button off his shirt, close his eyes, spin around and then try to find it... just to pass the time in solitary.

Families of the warden and the guards actually lived on Alcatraz, catching the ferry to school and to shop. They said they felt perfectly safe, often leaving their doors unlocked.

Something else I didn't know was that around 1970, a number of Native Americans occupied the unused island claiming that, under treaty with the United States, they could occupy all vacant Federal lands. Eventually, they were removed.

They told the story of the one escape, ultimately unsuccessful, from Alcatraz. They carefully constructed paper machie heads to fool the guards. They made it to the water, and were never heard from again. It's presumed they died trying to swim the bay.

While walking around, we spied a structure that we later found out was Coit Tower. An unfortunately named structure (Gee, a long shaft of stonework, thrusting forth into the sky, with it's oddly shaped top and the name "Coit." What were they thinking?) it's also strangely inaccessible.

We saw it and figured we could walk to it, which was true. Put San Francisco, apparently trying to compete with Washington D.C. for title of No Straight Lines in the City, doesn't make it easy. Even when we entually found an entrance, it was closed and we had to walk up and up until we could get to the park and the tower.

San Francisco is called the land of Seven Hills. Truth be told, one of our tour guides said, it's more like 47. All standing between us and the tour, apparently.

We also saw the legendary Lombard street, named after the long-suffering supporting Superman character Steve Lombard, no doubt. The street winds and winds, and the speed limit is only five miles an hour.

I'd hate to think what that slows down to during Orange Barrel season.

There's a statue of Christopher Columbus in front of the tower looking over the Bay. I have no idea why. Chris never made it this far north, let alone this far west. Plus, any guy who's been played by Geraud Depardieu really shouldn't have a monument.

We took the elevator (thank God) to the top and took a look around. It was a great view of the city.