Kathleen's Window: San Francisco, Open Your Golden Gates!

May 15 and 16, 2014

Thursday morning we left Big Pines Campground to make the descent to the Central Valley and over the final coastal range to the San Francisco Bay area. Once we got into internet and cellphone range we found and called an RV park in Marin County, to see if we could get in for two nights. They had plenty of spaces, so we continued on, going from rural into suburban, then urban areas, as we caught sight of San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge at Oakland, the San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. We crossed over on the Richmond Bridge, to Marin County, on the northern side of the Golden Gate Bridge and drove past the old, infamous San Quentin prison. Coming to the Marin RV Park, we paid $65 a night for two nights on a gravel parking lot in a row of mostly rental RV's. We were so close together that we could hear the chronic coughing all night long from one of the British accented men in the next RV. The RV on the other side had three young women speaking Italian. Oh, well, we were only going to sleep there, not spend time during the day. The big advantage of this park was the 10 minute walk to the Larkspur fast ferry that would take us to the San Francisco ferry wharf in a half hour.

That evening we walked to the shopping area across from the ferry dock. On the walk over we passed fennel growing wild along the side of the road. Greg said that in Marin County even the weeds are organically grown gourmet vegetables! We had dinner at the Belcampo Meat Company, “We Sell Certified Organic and Humane Meats from Our Own Farm”. We were in Marin County, the land of the “foodies”, home of organic, sustainable, slow food. We thoroughly ENJOYED our food. Greg had a cheesesteak sandwich and tallow fries, and I had meatballs and broccolini. Afterward we walked around the shopping area and noticed the herbs and tomato plants growing in the planters.

Greg could never grow fennel this luxuriant in the garden. Here it it a roadside weed!

Exotic flowers in sidewalk gardens

Gourmet version of cheesesteak

Friday morning we walked to the ferry dock, paid our fare, $9.50 each for one way, boarded and looked at the sights as we sailed across the Bay. We passed the shoreline and homes of Marin County, Angel Island, Alcatraz, and then a foggy view of the Golden Gate Bridge! Unloading at the old Ferry Building, we went inside to see where we might want to shop and eat on the way home. The old building was neglected and overshadowed by the freeway until the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 pancaked the freeway. After that, the overpass was not rebuilt, and the building re-done and opened up for food shops and restaurants, and twice a week Farmer's Markets.

The fast ferry

The Marin Peninsula shoreline

Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge

Coming into San Francisco

Inside the Ferry Building

Ferry Terminal

The next task was to buy MUNI Passes for the day that would give us unlimited rides on the buses, streetcars, but also, the cable cars! At $6 a ride it can add up fast if you want to hop on and off. We bought our passes and hopped on the first cable car we could find near the ferry dock. My last visit to San Francisco was 36 years ago. I loved riding on the outside of the car and holding onto the pole, and very much wanted to do so again. Greg took an outside seat and I grabbed a pole and off we went!

Halfway up California Street we noticed we were riding through Chinatown, so we hopped off and wandered the streets for a while. Wandering past so many interesting restaurants made us hungry, so we finally picked a small one specializing in Szechuan food to buy lunch. It was busy, and mostly filled with Chinese, so we figured it should be good and authentic. We were seated at a table with a young couple who spoke Chinese throughout their meal. The waitress brought them huge plates of long green beans, rice, and then a gas flamed heated tray on which she placed a huge platter with a whole catfish and vegetables. It simmered and steamed while we ate our smaller, less adventurous dishes.

Visual overload in Chinatown

Karate jacket for fluffy dogs

Dried fish parts

How do we pick which restaurant out of a hundred?

This was a small lunch plate.

Kathleen's 3-gallon bucket-o-soup

Our tablemates shared this smothered catfish in addition to other big plates. I think they needed a shopping cart for the leftover containers.

After a delicious lunch we climbed a few blocks uphill to a cable car stop and rode to the cable car powerhouse and museum. Touring it, we learned about the history and mechanics of San Francisco's famous cable cars. The cables for all four lines run continuously through the building. The operators of the cars attach and detach from the under street cables as they travel up and down the hills. With a new found respect for the strength and skill the operators need to run them, we rode another car to Lombard Street and checked out the supposedly crookedest street in the world. What a mob scene! Dozens of tourists were milling about at the top and walking down the sidewalk, stopping to take photos of each other. Cars were driving down, and one couple in a convertible had a GoPro-Cam on a stick recording the drive down, while their car stereo playing loudly.

Drive motors and sheaves

Cable car grip

Top of the Hill at Lombard

Lombard - "The crookedest street in the world"

The View from Lombard towards Coit Tower

We walked halfway down and back up again and got on another cable car to continue to Fisherman's Wharf. When the car headed down the steep hill, the attractive blonde next to Greg apologized to Greg as she unexpectedly slid into him on the bench. I said, “You better watch yourself!”, in a gruff voice, and she looked very concerned that I might take a swing at her, until she saw the grin on my face! Then the middle-aged woman sitting on the other side of the bench next to Greg asked the young woman standing next to me holding onto a pole, if the young man holding on to the pole with her was her boyfriend. She said no, and the woman said, “If he keeps pressing his crotch against my knees, he's going to have to marry me!” The whole section of our cable car burst out laughing! A crowded cable car makes for some strange encounters!

At the bottom of the hill we got off west of Fisherman's Wharf and walked to the pier with the National Maritime Museum. We spent a lengthy amount of time touring several boats. On the sailing ship a group of middle-schoolers and their chaperones were being put through their paces by two reinactors preparing them for life on board. We found their sleeping bags on the crew's bunks and several cooks in the galley, so we supposed they were spending the night.

Square-rigged ship at the Maritime Museum

Small Boat Shop

An old steam ferry

Steam Tug

On the Square-rigged ship

Ship rigging with view of the Golden Gate

Alcatraz Island

Leaving that pier, we walked along Fisherman's Wharf, into the Musee Mechanique, where there is a collection of old arcade games that can still be played, and past a WWII submarine, and a Liberty ship built in that port by “Rosie the Riveters”. Continuing on to Pier 39 we found the sea lions that took up residence on the marina's floating docks after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Since then, more and more have joined them, the boats have been pushed out of that area, and they have become a tourist attraction.

Street performer

Sea Lions taking over the small boat slips

Huge container ships coming in to port

Dancing Crab

Deciding it was getting late in the afternoon, we walked along the Embarcadero back towards the ferry dock. On the way we passed the Coit Tower, and stopped to look at the outdoor exhibit at the Alcatraz Pier. Before coming to San Francisco, we decided not to try to take the boat to tour Alcatraz. Tickets have to be purchased on line several days ahead, and then a good chunk of the day gets taken up with the tour and the boat trips back and forth. I toured it 36 years ago, when the boat was small and you could just walk up and get on.

We got back to the Ferry Building just as the shops were closing. We made a quick purchase of Boccolone artisan salume (salami), and some King's Trumpets mushrooms, but missed the Cowgirl Creamery Cheese. We found the very crowded Ferry Building Wine Bar, (Friday night Happy Hour), and decided we weren't hungry after our big Chinese lunch, so, glasses of wine, some bread, cheese, and olives made a great dinner. Afterward, we wandered around the terminal area a bit while we waited for our 8:10 ferry. The ferry pulled out as the lights were coming on in the city, and the sun was going down. We had a cool, but lovely ride back to the Larkspur dock, and a short walk to our rig. San Francisco was fun for a day, but now we were ready to head up the Pacific Coast and lose some people! After the crowds of Yosemite and San Francisco we were feeling population pressure!