the city by the bay

A white blanket of fog chills the air as I gaze out the car's windows. Postcard-pretty houses line the streets, shaded by trees the color of autumn. As the wind blows, I can almost hear these houses whispering to me, each with its own tales of a bygone era.

Cable cars toil up and down the steep hillsides, bells clanging. In the distance, the Pacific Ocean shimmers, bringing stories of heartbreak and sailors shipping out to sea. The Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge frame the peninsula, standing guard as the years pass by.

Wandering the streets of San Francisco feels like a walk back in time, to a genteel existence where towns were small but life was grand.

People often talk about how places had souls. I never understood what they meant.

Until now.