Ms. Adventure

Jul 14, 2007 - Sharp Crest Ahead

My del Sol and I, having moved to San Francisco and one of us having manual transmission (I’ll let you guess which one of us), haven’t had a lot of driving misadventure opportunities of late. The simple reason is this: I go white knuckle driving up the most bunny slope of roadways with my stick shift and would rather not find myself driving unknowingly onto one of the many black diamond hills this city is famous for.

However, last week I found myself in this exact situation because of something I can only explain as a brain malfunction.

I was returning from a visit to Mill Valley in the late afternoon and decided to pick my boyfriend up from his offices downtown. My first thought was to take the familiar route along Geary Blvd. I’ve driven a few times and taken the bus down many times since I moved up here. My second thought was that I should be a little adventurous and familiarize myself with the city – I’ve always found that I really learn my way around a place by driving in it.

I felt like I was forgetting something though…

Anyway, I passed the normal exit off of the 101 South that would have taken me to Geary and began reading unfamiliar signs. I still had this nagging feeling that I was forgetting something. I took an exit leading downtown off the freeway and within seconds, a wave of panic washed over me as I remembered what I was forgetting and the reason why I hadn’t thought of being adventurous before in my city driving: hills. My God… the hills. I tried to keep calm as the realization really sank in.

I’ll take a quick break here to say that I pride myself at my courage (in fact, exhilaration) in facing situations that most others find daunting. Sailing on the choppy seas? No problem. Turbulance? Bring.It.On. Rollercoasters? I’m an addict. That is, except, for the part of the ride before the initial decent. No, really. The scariest part of a coaster for me is that torturous slow ascent up the hill. This is the part of the ride where I have my breath held, eyes closed and a death grip on the safety bars. Moreover, since I was a child, I’ve had recurring dreams where I’m in a car (or a coaster) going up a hill and suddenly find myself falling backward. Freud yourselves out if you like; I’m not taking a guess at what the interpretation of those dreams might mean.

Now back to the misadventure at hand. I realized I had to quickly find a way back to my precious, familiar, safe Geary Blvd. The exit I took eventually led me to a sign for “Lombard St.” and I knew that was bad. My boyfriend had taken me down Lombard Street once and not only was in the “crookedest” street in S.F. but I do remember it being quite steep as well. I managed to avoid that disaster and continued heading east until I came to a familiar street name: Divisadero. I knew for sure that Divisadero went to Geary and from the few times I’d been on it I thought I remembered it being a safe choice so I headed south (those of you familiar with this street are surely laughing about now).

Immediately after I turned, my grip on the steering wheel tightened. Straight ahead of me all I saw were hills. Hill after hill, each with a subsequently steeper incline. Lucky for me, the roads were empty. There was a small pick-up truck in front of me and no one behind me which meant I had some room for error. This was a very good thing because I’ll mention now that for the last month my gas pedal has been sticking and I really have to push it hard to give my car gas as I shift. Oh yeah, it just keeps getting better.

Nothing to do now but go for it so, I started. The first two hills were no problem but the monsters were looming ahead of me as I was trying to find another street to bail down but really, where was I going to go? This was bad enough and I had no idea what else I would find if I veered off. I didn’t want to find myself out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I continued to ascend and tried not to the think about it. This was easy, I told myself; not an issue at all. Unfortunately, the pain from my nails digging into my palms around the steering wheel winced me back into my brain. About the fourth hill up I saw a very disturbing sign that read “Sharp Crest Ahead”. A fresh wave of panic washed over me as my imagination leapt over what that sign might mean, but I kept moving forward. At the top of the next hill I saw the same ominous sign again and kept going since I’d managed to make it through the last one. Then, finally – salvation! It was all over, I moved toward more stable ground and gave myself a mental high-five. My heartbeat started returning to normal and my breath regulated as I made a left onto safe, flat, familiar ol’ Geary.

I’m so tough.

3:42 pm | Categories: sf driving Permalink | Alert Administrator

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