Bookstore Beyond Reach

Last Friday I made a trip to the big city of San Francisco, primarily to drop someone off at the SF airport, but I knew it would be a good opportunity to go checkout some of the sites we have talked about in class, and maybe take some photos for a still-undecided final project. I drove up the 101 into the downtown high-rise buildings covering the east side of the peninsula, and I followed my phones directions off the freeway and down many one-way streets until at last I arrived at Columbus Avenue.
Driving up a slight incline on the diagonal street, I caught site of the City Lights Bookstore to my left, inhabiting a much larger building then it had in my imagination. I checked to my right for the possibility of a way-too-lucky parking spot, but it did not exist, so I thought "Of course, Columbus is a busy street," and made a turn off to the left into residential streets. But still no luck, cars everywhere, every seemingly empty space marked red or hiding a driveway. I turned left and right and left again, back past the bookstore lurking in my mind's eye as I tried to keep my sense of direction stable, driving every which way around and around. For twenty minutes, I kid you not. While trying to keep my frustration and road rage under the surface, I realized that San Francisco was not made for cars, and that I was not made for driving in the city.
I also realized that being in a car made the bookstore that much more inaccessible to me, and in fact if I had taken the bus or bart and walked it would have been much simpler. It made me consider my privilege as a college student to have a car, and the irony of the situation. Now of course I could have extended my parking search out a few more blocks in either direction (or paid $15-20 flat rate for parking) and I could have made it work. But it was nearing sunset and my "nice trip to the city" was quickly unraveling, so I gave up and moved on to North Beach where I spent time walking around Fort Mason and got dinner from a food truck selling creative grilled cheese sandwiches.
If I get the chance before the end of the quarter it would be nice to try this bookstore adventure again with more time and preparation, and have the chance to browse the literary selection and get my picture taken by the doorway, but in the mean time here is a picture that I did not take.