The New Year's Eve walk
by
Every year on New Year's Eve, Paul and I go for a walk that, generally, goes up a big hill, then down, and ends with sunset at the beach. This was his tradition before it was our tradition and it's shifted a bit over the years. Early on, I only joined him after he came down Twin Peaks and we took the N to Ocean Beach together. During the first two years of Covid, 2020 and 2021, we didn't take the train and just climbed Twin Peaks and watched the sunset from there. And in 2022 it was so horrible and rainy that we didn't climb anything and took the train to the beach (I insisted) and saw no sunset at all, and then were driven off within 10 minutes by horizontal rain. Last year, things finally got back to normal, with both the hill climb and ocean sunset.
This year, we decided to go to Tank Hill instead of Twin Peaks. The view is still spectacular and the climb is a lot less intense. The 33 drops you just a few minutes away.
There's a bench you can sit on and look out onto downtown San Francisco.
Walking down hill, we came across a bee with inspirational messages for the next year.
I didn't photograph the Muni train, though perhaps I should have. I did photograph Paul photographing the beach.
It seemed like more people came out than usual. To be fair, it was exceptionally beautiful.
These people were trying to catch crabs, which are in season right now. No luck that day, though. They said they wanted to try even though they didn't have the right clothes to go into the water since they had their license and were there. Pacifica Pier is a better place for crabs, they said.
Someone built this astounding drip-style sandcastle. Against the sunset sky, it looked like the mysterious crags and spires you might see on a 1980s fantasy novel cover.
I bet this fisherman was wearing proper waders.
The sky reached a peak of red glow before it began to fade. We were among many people who came out to watch the last sunlight of the year reflect and diffuse before the stars came out.
