Parking in San Francisco... the tale of a minor miracle

A small miracle occurred in San Francisco when we found parking. Last time, we cruised the streets for half an hour looking for somewhere to park.

This time, we went around the major parking buildings close to the wharves (all full) before deciding that we were not about to part with $28 for three hours of parking! With several false starts on commercial parking spaces (remember, you need to check ALL signs, curb colours, and stickers on parking machines in the vicinity before parking and discovering you will get towed in a few minutes), suddenly we turned up the street past the "Blue Mermaid" bar, around the corner from Fisherman's Wharf... and there it was - a parking space!

So, we checked the curb for colours - it was concrete-coloured. Tick.
There was a sign saying, "No parking between 10am and 4pm on Thursdays". It was Sunday. Tick.
On the same sign was another notice saying, "No parking between 6am and 6pm every day". It was 6.20 pm. Tick.

There were no parking meters. There were some on the other side of the road. It was FREE! Now this never happens in San Francisco.This seemed too good to be true.

So, we carefully parked. And crossed our fingers. And readjusted our wheels to avoid rolling back into the road should the brakes fail, as required by law in San Francisco and warned by the sign in front of us (as you can apparently get a hefty ticket!).

Just to be sure we asked the people behind us, who had also come to the same conclusion and kindly moved back to give us some space.

We were most relieved to see our car, several hours later, still where we left it. A minor miracle had indeed occurred.