San Francisco

Our first big city, whilst we had visited other cities for the day or even an hour or two, this was the first time we planned to stay in a city for a period of time. Leah & Andy had encouraged us to visit the Bay area and so we left Oakhurst and headed south on Hwy 41, Hwy 49 north would have been a more direct route but it went straight through the mountains and so we took the easy route across to Hwy 45 and then north on Interstate 99, west on Hwy 152, north on Interstate 5, joined Interstate 580 into the East Bay area and San Leandro, the GPS took us straight to the campsite, Trailer Haven. We set up and telephoned Leah to say we had arrived and arranged to meet Andy the next afternoon, unfortunately Leah had torn her calf muscle and was on crutches so would not be able to be our tour guide!

Thursday was David’s Birthday so we set out early; we walked to the BART station (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and bought our tickets to Powell Street in San Francisco city. A mixture of overland, aerial and underground railway, it took us quickly under the bay and into the city. We got out at Powell St and walked across the road to the Cable Car turnaround, the que was longer than we wanted to wait so we walked up Powell St to Union Square, dominated by the 97 foot high Dewey Monument and in heart of the shopping and hotel district. We sat for a while watching the hustle and bustle and then we set off on a walking tour suggested in our information bible ‘the Lonely Planet guide to the USA’ which led us to the stone dragons and jade-green awnings of the Chinatown Gate.

We walked through the gate and up Grant Ave through the throng of visitors and local residents, then left on Sacramento St and right into Waverly Place, an alley lined with brightly painted filigreed open balconies. At Washington St we turned left and then right into Ross Alley a hidden pedestrian walkway that’s been featured in several films; at the end the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory is an unadorned shop front where Chinese women at two old fashioned machines produce fortune cookies, a San Francisco invention. An old man beckoned us in to try a sample that was still hot from the oven, then another sample this time chocolate flavoured. At that moment an organised tour of people arrived and the tiny shop could not accommodate so many people so we squeezed our way out to continue our self guided tour.

Back to Washington St and east to Portsmouth Square, the heart of San Francisco during the gold rush era, and to local residents it is still Chinatown’s living room. Children play in the park’s playground and the older folks gamble on the benches, surrounded by shopping and interested bystanders.

Then north on Kearny St to Columbus Ave where we decided not to complete the walk and so turned right down to Montgomery St through the financial district, once part of the notorious Barbary Coast now the buildings define the San Francisco skyline, we passed the Transamerica Pyramid completed in 1972 and at 853 feet the city’s tallest building.

We turned left on California St down to the Embarcadero and the Ferry Building, once the main debarkation point for the immigrants it is now a gourmet haven of shops and restaurants. We followed Embarcadero south to the Oakland Bay Bridge and the Gordon Biersch Bar and micro brewery where we had arranged to meet Andy after he finished work. The bar tender took us through a sampling of all their beers and we settled on the dark ale as our favourite. It was great to see Andy again and we talked for ages about our and their travels, the beer was good too and after a few pints of dark ale we decided a walk back to Powell St station was a good idea. BART took us back to San Leandro and we walked to Ernie’s Restaurant for Dave’s birthday supper. We didn’t need any rocking to sleep that night!

We had a lay in the next day and only ventured out in the afternoon; we took the motorcycle to Jack London Square, north of us on the waterfront at Oakland. The square has been made into an attractive tourist zone filled with restaurants and shops, surrounded by marinas and the terminus for the Ferries to and from San Francisco. Named after the local hero who supposedly wrote portions of the ‘Sea Wolf’ and the ‘Call of the Wild’ (my Dad’s favourite book) in the tiny 1880 watering hole Heinold’s First & Last Chance Saloon, a National Literary Landmark, it is open daily for inspirational drinking. It was built from the timbers of an old whaling ship and was originally used as a bunk house by the men working in the nearby oyster beds. Then in 1883 Johnny’s $100 purchase was transformed with the aid of a ship’s carpenter into a saloon where seafaring men could feel at ease. During the 1920’s the ferry from Alameda stopped next to Heinold’s, Alameda was a dry city at the time and this bar was the commuter’s First and Last Chance for refreshment. As a school boy Jack London studied at the same tables in use today and it was while studying here and listening to the stories of ships’ crews that he developed his thirst for adventure. The original gas lights are still used and the black stove was the only form of heat until 1989. The photo is not askew by the way, when the great San Francisco earthquake struck in 1906, the pilings underneath the saloon settled in the mud and subsequent efforts to shore up the floor proved unsuccessful.

It was bought by Carol Brookman in 1984 with the promise to maintain its appearance as close to original as possible, and we were ably served by Jimmy Nitro the very amenable and somewhat eccentric bartender.

Saturday we took BART to SF International Airport, we had finally received confirmation that our visas had been extended to September 2007 so we needed to change our return flights to match our new leave date. By the time we had gotten the new tickets it was time to get the next train back to the RV and get ready for our pickup, Andy and Leah were taking us to Leah’s Dad’s house for supper. Brian lives up in the hills overlooking San Francisco bay, a beautiful setting and on a clear day you can see the Golden Gate Bridge, unfortunately like most of our days so far the sea mist was obscuring the view. He is a retired school teacher and now enjoys cooking and good wine, he prepared a marvellous meal, home made soup, salad and baked salmon each accompanied by a different wine selected from his extensive cellar. He gave us maps and information about the Californian wine country north of the city and offered to be our tour guide in the city if need be. We had a great evening, the time flew by and before we knew it, it was time to say farewell and be chauffeured home by Andy and Leah.

Sunday was NASCAR again, Dave’s really getting into the racing and his boy Jeff Gordon was eighth on the grid. Jeff managed to get in the lead and stayed there for 40 or 50 laps, and then he dropped back to fifth due to a long pit stop, they were trying to remove tape from the radiator to reduce the temperate of the engine, they didn’t get it all off but he went back out. The car was running at 270 dec F and steaming from the vent behind the bonnet. Other cars were over heating as well, Darlington is notoriously hot. After another 15 laps or so a caution was flagged and as the cars were slowed down the steaming became worse, he pitted for fresh tyres and they managed to remove the rest of the tape from the radiator, he rejoined the race in 4^th place. The car stopped steaming and they were not sure if it had cooled down or if it was out of water! After another 15 laps there was another caution and many cars pitted but Jeff’s pit boss told him to stay out and he took the lead. For the last 10 laps it steamed relentlessly and the commentators named it ‘Stanley Steamer’ after a carpet cleaning company that advertises on the local television Jeff reported that all the gauges were off the scale and he didn’t know how the engine stayed together but he kept his foot down and nobody could catch him. Dave was amazed and couldn’t stop talking about it for days.

Monday we took the BART into town again and this time we decided to wait in the que for the cable car. The cable cars come down the street and are driven onto the turntable but they have to be manually pushed around and back onto the outgoing track. I managed to get an outside seat but Dave had to ‘hang on’ the entire journey, we went up Powell St past Union Square, up Jackson St and along Mason St, up Columbus Ave and down Taylor St, and I do mean up and down, San Francisco is built on a number of hills, I am not sure how many but is seems you are always slogging up one or negotiating gingerly down another.

Once we disembarked we walked the last 3 blocks to Fisherman’s Wharf, thankfully once you are down by the water the going is easy and flat. The wind off the sea had a definite chill to it so we made our first stop one of the many street vendors and purchased two bowls of hot clam chowder. Dave’s was in a small cottage loaf but I didn’t think I could manage all that so I just had a paper bowl, however, I helped him finish the loaf in the end. It was delicious and warming so we walked on through the shops and restaurants to the San Francisco Maritime Museum, based around Hyde Street pier they have 6 large vessels and a number of smaller ones although not all are open to the public.
We visited Eureka a side-wheeled ferry built in 1890, Hercules a steam powered tug boat built in 1907 and, the most impressive to sailors like us, Balclutha a square rigged 256 foot ship built in Glasgow (Scotland) in 1886.

It was built to carry cargo, wheat from California to Europe, then taking supplies to the Alaska fisheries returning with tinned salmon, and later inter-coastal traffic of fruit, timber and anything else people wanted moving from place to place.

We walked back past Fisherman’s Wharf and down pier 39, according to ‘the book’ the epicentre of manufactured tourism, it certainly was full or tourists, we followed the noise and found the sea lions that have taken over some of the boat docks. We stood there for some time watching their antics, one large bull seal spent his entire time barking and stopping any others climbing onto 'his' platform.


We decided to try and finish the walking tour we abandoned the other day and so we climbed up Leavenworth Street to the bottom of Lombard Street aka ‘the world’s crookedest street’ and then down Lombard Street to Columbus Ave and the Peter & Paul Church, unfortunately it was padlocked shut, so we crossed the road to a wine bar for refreshments. ‘Melt’ is run by a Jersey girl whose mum came from Manchester , it is a small world.

We took another walk through Chinatown and did some shopping and on a whim decided to have supper at the same restaurant we had lunch at the other day.

The next day we had planned to take the ferry across from Oakland to the Ferry building in SF to get a sea view of the Golden Gate Bridge but sea mist was obscuring the view so we had a quiet morning instead and Dave did some modifications to the bike ramp to stop it rattling when it was in the travelling position.

After lunch we took BART into SF and walked to the Wells Fargo Bank Museum, it chronicles the company from it’s start in 1852, its legendary stagecoach network, the government’s take over of all its major express business in 1918 when they went from operating at over 10,000 locations to just one virtually overnight, to its multi-billion dollar corporation today. The exhibits included items from the original offices, their employees and some from the people who tried to rob them! We left at closing time and headed back through Chinatown to the Italian quarter, we were looking for somewhere to have a glass of wine in restful surroundings but we ended up in an Irish Bar at happy hour with the locals unwinding from a days work, it was dark and noisy but full of atmosphere.

Then it was time to head off to Betz & Son House of Prime Rib where we were to meet Andy & Leah for dinner, the shortest route was up and down those San Francisco hills so it took longer than we had thought, we arrived on time but hot and out of breath. We had drinks while we caught up with what we had been doing and then went through to the very full dinning room, we took Andy’s advice and had the beef which was delicious, Dave had seconds but the rest of us couldn’t even manage puddings. Oh and by the way it was Leah’s Birthday, Happy Birthday Leah and thanks for a wonderful meal.

The next day we were on the road again, north over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge heading for wine country.

The sea mist was still obscuring the views of the bay, Alcatraz was another place we had meant to visit but that will have to wait for another day. We were leaving so that we could be in Petaluma in time for their salute to American Graffiti.