San Francisco 2025

We attended a CMT conference in San Francisco where Zoë was on a panel, and for once John was not speaking. It was a one day event followed by a day in Sonoma, and the weather was glorious.

A few years ago San Francisco was going through a rough patch with the homeless situation out of control. While the city has not fully recovered economically, there are more tourists and the homeless situation seems to be far less severe.

While Zoë and John attended the Saturday event, I met an old friend at the De Young museum. I had time and it was a beautiful day, so I walked the four miles. SF is a beautiful city and I appreciate the architecture of the old homes. I also passed some fun hipster stores on Hayes Avenue, an area undergoing rejuvenation.

It's a hilly city and I encountered a good view from a park hilltop..

The De Young is a great museum with a varied collection. They had a show of Paul McCartney's B&W photos from the 60s which was fun, but what I was most interested in was the Matisse show of his Jazz book unbound.

Sarah directed us to the tower in the museum which had great vistas of the city.

SFMOMA was holding a Ruth Asawa retrospective, but the De Young has quite a few of her pieces beautifully lit.

I'm a fan of oversized modern sculpture so I appreciated the museum's outdoor garden.

There is a lot of wonderful sculpture to appreciate throughout the city, one doesn't have to be at a museum. I loved these.

On Sunday the CMT organized a wine tour in Sonoma. Driving out of the city we went on the Golden Gate Bridge.

We visited two wineries, Cohn and Mayo. Both were entertaining visits and all the wines we tasted were good.

Between the two wineries we stopped for lunch in Sonoma, where the cherry blossoms were blooming.

I hope San Francisco continues to bounce back. It's a great city.