Epic Journey

So I'm house hunting again. I've looked at a couple places in and around Menlo Park/Palo Alto again, and then Friday I went to check one out in the Mission District in the City. I took the Caltrain down to 22nd & King after work (after working late. Grrrr.) and had Google directions on how to get to the house by bike. Well, the Caltrain is on 22nd, and the house I was going to was on a cross street that ran between 22nd and 23rd, but down a ways. Google told me to go all the way up to 17th, around, and back down. I though "Pshaw, whatever. I don't need to go all that way. I'll just go down 22nd."

Well.

For some reason I went to 20th at started biking along there. It was so steep I had to walk up it. I thought "I'll head back over to 22nd, maybe the hill is not quite so steep there". So 2 blocks back to 22nd, and this is what the street had become:





Ok, so I walked my bike up the dirt & wood path that 22nd had turned into until it hit the next road. When I got to the road, instead of 22nd becoming its own road again, it became a stair case:



I thought, well, that doesn't look too bad. I'll just carry my bike up and then I'll be able to bike again. But then when I got to the top of the stairs you see here, there were more stairs.



There was actually access to a driveway that ran parallel to the stairs about 1/3 of the way up, so I was able to push my bike the rest of the way up instead of carrying it. Biked for about a block when I got up, and then there was a super steep downhill that I was afraid to bike down now. I didn't trust my brakes to be able to stop me at the cross streets. So I walked my bike down, worrying now that the traction on my shoes wasn't good enough to hold me on to the sidewalk. I expected to slide down the sidewalk in my running shoes at any moment.

I made it to about the bottom of the hill and saw this. 22nd is the 'street' to the left of the dead end sign.



It was a footpath that ran over the highway:



That was the last bit of craziness to 22nd St. After that, I entered the Mission where everything is blessedly flat. So it was a bit of an adventure getting there. But I must say, San Francisco makes up for the pain of going up and down all these crazy hills with some pretty stunning views.