San Francisco: A clear view from Corona Heights
The weather has been exceptionally clear the last 2 weekends in San Francisco. Today we walked from 16th Street BART to Corona Heights, Buena Vista Park, down through the Haight, over to the panhandle and into Golden Gate Park, out to Stow Lake, and back to the Mission. About 11-12 miles, but I wasn't paying attention because the scenery was so beautiful. The views were as clear as I've ever seen them. If you live in the Bay Area, get yourself to a hilltop and check out the views.
The panorama above is 9 vertical images shot with a Ricoh GRD II point and shoot camera, stitched together in Adobe Photoshop CS4. As long as there are no foreground elements that are very close to the camera, CS4 does a great job of automatic stitching.
On the way back to BART from this epic urban hike, we stopped at Monk's Kettle and enjoyed some great food and libations -- of special mention are the Speakeasy Hunter's Point Porter with cacao nibs, and Ommegang's strong Belgian winter ale, Adoration. Highly worth seeking out!