A Diary Entry: The Most Crooked Street in U.S.

February 17, 2018

Dear Diary,

          Today, I went on the most crooked street in America. It is located in San Francisco, California. I went on vacation with my mom because it is a four day weekend, so we decided to come here to see my aunt and uncle. We went into the city to go sightseeing. We went to Pier 39, and saw all sorts of things, but the most interesting thing I saw was Lombard Street.

          At first, I thought, "What could be so interesting about this exact street that it is famous?" The a lot roads of San Francisco are very interesting. Since the city is in a very mountainous area, some of the streets were very steep, and were fun to go up and down on, if you were in a car (Luckily, I didn't have to walk up any of those). I looked at the map I got, and a section of Lombard street was labeled "Most Crooked Street", and on the map, the road was zig-zagging. I was confused about why the street looked like that on the map, what could the most crooked street look like? 

          As we neared the street, I noticed that there were more tourist wandering around, and the traffic was heavier. We reached an intersection that was very crowded with both cars, and people. There was man guiding the traffic that told us that we had to go around the block in order to go the way we wanted. We wanted to turn right and go down the street that just suddenly cut off. It didn't really end there, it just that it's so steep that you can't see the road. There were also a lot of tourist just standing by that way.

          Anyway, we went around the block, and finally made it back around to that intersection. This time, we just had to go forward instead of turning. The man I had seen earlier signaled us to go forward. So, we continued on our way to the Most Crooked Street, or so I thought.

          At that moment, I realized we were already on that street, and it was nothing like I imagined. It was so steep, I was nearly leaning out of my seat! But not only that, there were about 8-10 cars in front of us, all precariously going down this hill! It was also not as straightforward as I first thought it would be.

          While you drive down this street, you had to turn around multiple bends before you made it to the bottom. You had to keep your foot on the brakes at all times, or else it would be a disaster. The cars in front of us were probably only moving at less than 5 mph! My uncle was driving the car, and it must have been very strange to drive on a road like this. I had no clue why anyone would make a road like this. One idea that came up while we were discussing this is that this design was the only way horses could go up and down the hills. It was kind of nerve racking going down because if anyone moved too fast, then it would be all crazy, and a very big problem would occur.

          After about 7 or 8 minutes, we finally reached the bottom of the road, and we continued on our merry way back to my aunt and uncle's house. That section of Lombard Street was the most interesting, and strangest street that I have ever been on.