24 Hours in the Bay Area

     These are a couple of snaps from my 24 hour stint in the Bay Area.  I was only in town to shoot for a charity dinner event, but in true Soupy fashion I decided to jam pack my day with shooting.  Although I had a rental car, I wasn't too keen on the idea of driving around San Francisco.  Luckily one of my friends found someone to drive us around in the morning.  I shot what I could with the time I had, which was basically about 3 hours or so. 

All photos taken with my Canon G7x or 5d mark lll.

     Mmm.... Philz coffee.  Ridiculously overpriced Philz coffee LOL.  (Please excuse my super dry skin.)

     First stop - Mt. Davidson Park.

     Because of the heat wave in SoCal, the cooler weather in the Bay Area was completely welcomed.  I think I was meant to live in a place with a cooler climate. 

     Definitely want to come back to this park when it's not so cloudy/overcast!

     Stop #2 - Vista Point from the Marin side of Golden Gate Bridge.

     Stop #3 - Golden Gate Bridge from the Marin Headlands.

     Last stop - The top of a parking garage in Chinatown.

     You can't be in Chinatown without a little photo walking, so we took a little stroll around the area.  I had some buns and this pork and rice thing wrapped in banana leaves, and both were delectable.  I get bonus points for being able to navigate my way towards San Ramon while eating these in the car. :)

     Everything was going so well.  I went to shoot the charity dinner, then went back to my hotel to check into my early morning flight only to find out the flight had been cancelled since it was a plane that was flying in from Louisiana (and due to the flooding, that flight was cancelled).  It was NOT fun scrambling to find a flight home at midnight.  I ended paying for a one way flight home on Delta Airlines, and that flight ended up costing the same amount that I paid for round trip airfare on Spirit, hotel, and car rental combined.  

     

     I figured everything had been sorted out, so at 1 am I decided to sleep for two hours before leaving at 3 am for my 5:30 am flight back to LAX.  At 4 am, I woke up in a panic, and broke many speed limits in order to return my car rental and get to the airport on time.  It was during this adrenaline-filled adventure that I learned how hard it is to try and run with a backpack full of camera gear.  Speaking of backpack, I had ordered an Evecase camera backpack, and actually enjoyed using it quite a bit.  It was the only thing I brought with me (due to Spirit's super strict nickel and dime charges for everything.)  I'll review the backpack in a later post. 

    At about 7 am, I was thrilled to see this view.  The biggest lessons learned from this experience were:  1) Never fly with Spirit Airlines  and 2) Don't go anywhere for 24 hours (or in this case, it ended up being about 23 hours.)