San Francisco!

Hi friends,

We escaped...er....finished our sightseeing adventures in Bakersfield to move onto San Francisco with the newly-improved Beetle ready for action. Many thanks to the donations that were sent to us by our friends and supporters to help us with that unexpected hit to the project budget!!! Your generosity was just amazing and lifted our spirits while feeling down in Bakersfield! I was trying to stay positive as you could see in my last post but it was frustrating nonetheless.

The drive north to San Francisco took several hours was an interesting drive through the central valley of California, where much of our produce comes from. As we drove through the reservoir we saw a large windfarm on the ridge line. We actually stayed overnight in Redwood City which is just south of San Francisco. The most frustrating part of our down time in Bakersfield was that we had to compact our planned stay in San Francisco over several days down to an overnight and then an afternoon in the city the next day. We had so many video interviews planned for the rest of the week that I just couldn't push everything forward a few days.

The next morning started with a visit to Google in Mountain View, where we had a personal tour of their solar array. GooglePlex, as the Google campus is called, has one of the largest solar panel installations by a company in the U.S. (it was the largest when it was built). Google is one cool place! They made a great website that has lots of info about their solar installation - check it out:
http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home

We drove up into San Francisco for the afternoon and saw all that we could see in that small amount of time, filming for our Green City Spotlights. San Francisco pretty much tops every list of Top 10 Greenest Cities in the U.S., and for good reason. The city has an extensive public transportation system with light-rail, buses, streetcars, etc. Parking is VERY expensive (I put 45 cents in the parking meter and got 10 minutes, I'm not kidding). Recycling is big - one big blue bin for recycling, a big green bin for compost, and a little black bin for trash. The city is also a big proponent on solar, with the largest solar array by a city in the U.S., and they also offer big incentives for residents to go solar.

We took an excursion to drive the Beetle down Lombard Street, which is the steep, curvy street that is iconic in San Francisco. We also stopped in the Haight-Ashbury district, famous for being hippie central in the 60's. That was fun trying to explain THAT one to the kids.

We drove after dinner several hours up to Chico for a full schedule of interviews the next day, but at the risk of writing an endless post I'll stop it here.

Many thanks again to everyone who has supported us on this cross-country adventure - we've seen so many amazing things through the camera lens and met many inspiring people along the way. While we've met a few famous people, most of them are everyday folks who found a passion and made great things happen, with the support of many around them. For Carrick to meet these people, interview them and get their stories to share, is such an experience. Thank you all for helping make that possible.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org