4.8 miles on the Barbary Coast Trail

We'll get to the walk in just a second.  First, I have an important announcement to make:

I WALKED 500 MILES!!

Yes, this walk marked my 500th documented mile of San Francisco streets.  I have about another 500 to go, so I'm nowhere close to done, but I thought the milestone was noteworthy enough to craft my own pink star award.  Yay, me!

So for this historic walk, I figured I would take a truly historic walk: the Barbary Coast Trail.

You know you are on the trail when you spot these direction medallions in the sidewalk.  Just follow the arrows to the next marker.

The trail starts at the old Mint Building on 5th and Mission.

Then it winds over to Union Square...

...and up Grant Street through Chinatown.

I happened to catch a live performance in Chinatown.  It was a nice excuse to sit for a minute.

East of Chinatown, the trail winds through the Jackson Square Historic District.  I happened to notice that Blackboard is tucked discretely down an alley in this neighborhood.  I took online classes in grad school and loved the Blackboard platform.  Yay for good technology!

Back to the walk: the trail meanders up Columbus Street past all of the sidewalk cafes in North Beach.

I was looking forward to seeing the St. Peter and Paul church, but it's currently getting some work done. :/

That's okay.  Instead I looked at other stuff in the park, like this monument.

Finally, the trail winds around Fisherman's Wharf through the sea of tourists and sidewalk performers and ends at Ghirardelli Square.

And that's that!  You can hop on a cable car back to wherever you started.  I opted to walk back down Columbus so I could grab a 500th mile celebration dinner.