If you remember the 60's, you weren't there. |
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Looking back, this was probably one of the goofier date experiences we had. I don't recall exactly how I found Foot Tours, but I loved the idea of walking a neighborhood with a comedian and learning a few tidbits of history. Kathleen and I never really spent time in the Haight, so I thought it would be groovy to discover the neighborhood for this Mystery Date.
We grabbed a quick falafel lunch at Blue Front Cafe, a Middle Eastern restaurant I had wanted to try. Then we went next door to meet up with our guide (Dave? Let's say Dave). Kathleen didn’t know what we were doing and her interest was certainly piqued when I started talking to Dave. He definitely looked the part of Haight-Ashbury throwback/historian - scraggly beard, worn clothes, slightly glazed eyes. Oh and a boom box on a rope around his neck (think Flava Flav Haight-Ashbury style). I could tell Kathleen and I were both going to find this amusing!
We grabbed a quick falafel lunch at Blue Front Cafe, a Middle Eastern restaurant I had wanted to try. Then we went next door to meet up with our guide (Dave? Let's say Dave). Kathleen didn’t know what we were doing and her interest was certainly piqued when I started talking to Dave. He definitely looked the part of Haight-Ashbury throwback/historian - scraggly beard, worn clothes, slightly glazed eyes. Oh and a boom box on a rope around his neck (think Flava Flav Haight-Ashbury style). I could tell Kathleen and I were both going to find this amusing!
  | I thought there would be a group of people, but it turned out to be just us three. We walked around the neighborhood for the next couple of hours laughing, answering trivia questions, and seeing the city through the eyes of a Haight-Ashbury hippie. Here is the paraphrased tour description from the Foot Comedy Tours: This two-hour tour takes the intrepid traveler on a vivid trip through the heart of the Haight-Ashbury district, the birthplace of the cultural revolution that sparked the 1960’s. It’s the trippiest of all our trips. We see the locations of some of the most memorable events of the tie-dyed Summer of Love, as well as the former homes of the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, and other notable characters. The funniest part of the tour was when we were looking at Janis Joplin’s house, a couple of random tourists walked by with a guidebook and said, “That’s not Janis Joplin’s house… her's is two doors down.” Dave looked at them and said, “I’m pretty sure it’s this one, I’ve been telling people that for years!” A quick search at home proved Dave might have misinformed a few people over the years, but hey man it was the sixties when it all went down! |
I ended up winning the Good Trip/Bad Trip trivia contest during the tour, which scored me a CD ironically entitled, "Get a Haircut". All in all, the tour was goofy enough to enjoy on a lazy Sunday afternoon and we did learn a bit about a new (to us) neighborhood.
| Afterwards, I took Kathleen up to Fisherman’s Wharf to see the freshly decorated GIANT Christmas tree. The Holidays were right around the corner, so it was a nice detour to get us in the spirit! The final Mystery Date stop was a visit to the Buena Vista, which serves the famous Buena Vista Irish Coffee. An amazing little elixir of Tullamore Dew Whiskey, black coffee, sugar cubes, and frothed cream. I don't typically drink coffee, so I was literally buzzing on a couple different levels after that one! |  |
