A beautiful day in San Francisco

We decided to drive to San Francisco to apply for our visas at the Chinese consulate. When we planned the trip a week or so ago, the Bay Bridge was perfectly fine, but alas, on Tuesday, an emergency repair done over labor day decided to break, sending a cable flying down into rush hour traffic and closing the bridge indefinitely. Since there is no date for the bridge to re-open, we were faced with the choice of postponing the trip and risking running out of time before the trip, or just going anyway through Marin county and over the Golden Gate bridge. We chose to just go for it ! We had to be at the consulate by 12 noon. We ran into traffic galore, but made it to the consulate with a 1/2 hour to spare and found a free parking place just a block from the visa office. We were told to return at 2:40 pm, not 2:30, not 2:45, but 2:40 and also told to be on time because they closed at 3:00 sharp. We did a little shopping and returned at about 2:30, stood in line and picked up our completed visas without a hitch. Coming home was slow and go, taking almost 3 hours for a 90 minute trip. But we are now ready to travel !