Recently, we read in P.J. Corkery's always entertaining column that a few San Francisco stores are closing. They include the Disney Store (good riddance), Torrefazione Italia (yay! More Starbucks!) and the Rand McNally store on Market & New Montgomery. We know, we haven't been the ones who've been big on the saving old buildings and stores, but the closing of Rand McNally makes us sad.

Photo by Mark Jordan on CitySearch San Francisco

We used to travel a lot in our younger days, to pretty much every continent, most major cities, and even that crazy, exotic place people often refer to as "the South." For every trip we've taken, Rand McNally has played a major part of it. We've bought most of our tour books there and basic traveling supplies. When planning a trip, we'd often just go into the book section and read, looking for anything we hadn't thought of yet (it was reading during a lunch break, for instance, that we uncovered the mighty Sherkin Island off the coast of Ireland, a three-mile island that's home to ninety people and three pubs and an island that has obvious appeal to us). But most importantly, it was at Rand McNally that we dreamed up our traveling schemes. Whenever we'd feel stressed out and down, the travel bug merely just a distant buzz, we'd just go to the store and read. We'd check out books on Asia, on Europe, on specific countries and cities. And then, at some point while reading, we'd see a photo or read about something fun and an idea would form. We'd look at some photo of a beach or of a jungle and then we'd see ourselves in that photo. And it was then that we'd keep on going back, that travel bug screaming at us, telling us it’s time to plunk down the ole credit card and start planning. In fact, we would always tell people that they could tell we were serious about a trip the moment we bought a book there.

It's kind of funny in a way. It was a pretty non-descript store that mainly consisted of travel books and the occasional backpack. When people think about places in the city that they have strong attachments to, Rand McNally would not be the kind of place you'd think of. But for some reason, it did to us. We'll miss it. And thanks for all the fun we couldn't have had without you.