[Leica] Hawk Hill Adventure

["Frank Filippone" <red735i@earthlink.net>]

We left home in my car, with an enlarger to deliver in the Bay area.  Nice
day, good driving conditions.  Got as far as San Luis Obispo, went to the
Farmers' Market on Thursday night, and had a nice meal at Mo's BBQ.  The Tri
Tip sandwich at $6 was the meal deal.  Continued the next morning, and after
a few stops, Got as far as Sunnyvale where we had lunch.  We came out of the
restaurant to find that we had picked up a screw into the sidewall of our
new ( 1500 miles) right front tire. It was not flat yet, so I drove it to a
local garage where they changed the tire for the spare.  You have to
understand that to get to the spare, you must empty the trunk.  SO I had to
remove the enlarger from the trunk to get that done.  The baseboard weighs
around 65 pounds.  Ouch.

Delivered the enlarger, set it up, and left.  But to drive home comfortably
in a car with really odd sized tire ( Volvo made this model with 205-45-17
tires, which were made for this car only as far as I can tell) you need to
find a replacement.  We found one about 50 miles south,  SO we back tracked
to the garage, got the tire replaced ( a high point as I had the road
service warranty so the tire cost only $15).  It was getting late, and we
decided to overnight at a SFO hotel.  No problem, except for traffic being
lousy.  Shut off the engine, did the check in thing, returned to the car,
and tried to start it.  Nothing.  Nada. No whimper of noise from the
starter, the lights were not responding, the electric locks even would not
work.  Called AAA to get a jump so we could move the car from the front of
the hotel to a parking spot.  Next AM, called AAA again to get a tow to a
nearby garage that replaced the battery and the alternator ( many hundreds
of $$$).  Started off again, for Hawk Hill.  It was raining mildly when we
got there.  Hawk Hill is a really nice location on the North side of Golden
Gate Bridge where the winds converge and the birds go to play in the wind.
Did I mention it was raining?  It was also LOW cloud day.  SO low that at
one point we could not see 100 feet in front of the car.  Got to the Hill,
parked the car, proceeded to walk up a rather steep path to the religious
spot.  It is a WWII gun battery to protect San Francisco from the bad guys.

 Did I mention it was raining, and that the visibility was 50 feet?

We walked the 100 yards or so to the top, kind of miserable in the weather.
Looked around to see..... clouds.  Not white puffy clouds, just white cloud.
Visibility of 50 feet.  Walked around a bit when........

There on the fence, staying out of the cloud filled air, was a single red
tailed Hawk.  He was there for maybe 30 seconds till he noticed us and
decided he would rather be alone.  Off he flew.  I would like to think he
was there to greet us.  Maybe he was there to say thanks for coming up to
see this magnificent place.  Maybe he just plain wanted to get us sucked in
further for a repeat visit.

He will get his wish.  We are coming back.  It was   a glorious ending to a
troubled trip.

Frank Filippone
red735i@earthlink.net


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