The Elusive Cable Car

Day 8 ~ St. Helena – Redwood City, CA

The Memorial Day weekend began with us departing the El Bonita Motel in St. Helena (Napa Valley)

El Bonita

and driving to the greater San Francisco Bay area.  The towns and landmarks ticked by on our GPS ~ Yountville, Napa, American Canyon, Vallejo, Pinole, El Cerrito, Berkeley, across the bay on the Oakland Bay Bridge, look at that skyline!  Once on the San Francisco side of the Bay, we followed US 101 thru South San Francisco until turning west toward Half Moon Bay.  The road became a curvy twist of turns up and over the coastal range until dropping down to the coast at Half Moon.  We were still seeing the occasional Redwood trees, which continued to impress.

Our daughter and son-in-law had stayed at Seal Cove Inn at Moss Beach (sealcoveinn.com)  so we made it our destination for mid-day.  It’s a lovely inn but we were not staying so chose to have lunch at the nearby historic Moss Beach Distillery.  (www.mossbeachdistillery.com)  High on a cliff, overlooking the dynamic Pacific Ocean, the distillery was the ideal secluded location for rum-running bootleggers and a speakeasy during Prohibition.  Once known as Frank’s Place it is now on the list of CA historical landmarks, and interestingly it was never raided during its speakeasy years.  Frank was well connected socially and politically and continued to run a highly successful business after the repeal of Prohibition.  In a nod to its history, the distillery continues to be home to its very own Blue Lady Ghost, who has been featured in spirit related documentaries and on the television show “Unsolved Mysteries.”  We had a very nice lunch at the distillery and also a pleasant walk through the small community before heading back over the mountains toward our home for the next few days. 

Moss Beach Distillery

Seal Cove

We traveled south toward San Gregorio, and over a very curvy road through the hills to the lovely community of Woodside.   There were some beautiful homes and small estates in Woodside but our four-day rental was listed on VRBO (www.vrbo.com/625757) as being a Quirky Floating Studio, located on Redwood Creek at Redwood City.  Let’s say that it was not what I expected; we took to calling it a floating box.  The best thing about the floating box was its owner, Tania, who was probably the most communicative and helpful VRBO host we have ever experienced.  She instilled enough loyalty in us that we chose to sort of overlook the poor condition of the quirky floating box and instead of walking away from our prepaid rent we stayed.  It did fulfill our needs of providing beds, limited cooking, a shower and a place to brush our teeth, and the infamous marine toilet.  Needless to say, I’m not a boater so didn’t really understand the marine toilet (really, we had to pour pitchers of water into it to flush!) and suddenly I was actually missing our camping nights from a few days prior.  However, the floating box was right on budget and in a very good location only a fifteen-minute drive to the Millbrae BART station. (www.bart.gov)  We stayed four nights in the floating box and we both bit our tongues, leading to one of our insight into retirement moments a few days later.  Details to follow! 

Quirky Floating Box

 

Marine toilet

Day 9 ~ Leaving our hearts in San Francisco!

We set out early riding BART into the city, getting off at Union Square. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Square,_San_Francisco )  It’s a popular tourist center with several hotels within walking distance and also the top of the cable car lines for two of the most popular cable car routes.  (www.streetcar.org/wheels-motion/ride-cable-car-lines)  We were told there was about a three hour wait for the cable car and wanted to get on with our sightseeing rather than stand in line for the car; we’d catch it another time! 

Cable Car

Because the floating box had internet (that was a plus!), we had been able to purchase tickets online for the City Sightseeing Hop On – Hop Off Tour; we had two-day unlimited tickets and were excited to be able to experience seeing the sights and having transportation too.  (www.city-sightseeing.us/index.html)

Tour Bus

It was our understanding (printed on the voucher) that we needed to make our way to Fisherman’s Wharf to pickup our bus tickets and catch the first bus.  What we didn’t realize was that City Sightseeing also had a ticket kiosk at Union Square.  Yes, we walked up the hill, across the hill, and down the hill to the Wharf for probably well over an hour and had actually been within a block of the kiosk when we got off BART.  Oh well, we got our heart rate up!  There actually is a big heart sculpture at Union Square painted by Tony Bennett himself, to reflect his famous song "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_in_San_Francisco)

Once on the double decker bus we saw all the familiar sights . . . the Ferry Building, Market St., Union Square (been there!), Civic Center, Chinatown Gate, the Financial District, Transamerica Pyramid, Lombard St., Pier 39, and Fisherman’s Wharf to list some.  We didn’t hop on – hop off while on this initial ride, just trying to get our bearings and decide where we might want to go again and visit in depth.  After walking around Fisherman’s Wharf we enjoyed a nice fish taco meal at a local eatery and then went over to the swimming beach at Aquatic Cove Park, just below Ghirardelli Square.  This accomplished two things at once; we ate yummy ice cream sundaes while watching swimmers train in the cold bay waters for an upcoming long distance swim from Alcatraz.  I enjoy swimming so this was actually one of the highlights of the day for me!

City Hall

Coit Tower & Transamerica Pyramid

Federal Reserve

Stock Exchange

Fisherman's Wharf

Ice Cream!

After talking to some people we learned the cable car route up California Street was not normally very crowded and would top off near Union Square, where we needed to go to get back on BART.  So we thought we would hop on the sightseeing bus and ride it over to the Ferry Building; get off and walk a couple blocks over to the cable car.  However, the sightseeing bus was not coming for another hour so once again we took off walking across the neighborhoods, getting our heart rates up, and reaching the CA St. cable car turnstile only to find it busy with a long wait.  Oh well, we will catch it tomorrow!  Bob suggested we go into the Hyatt Regency and have a look (he’d stayed there years ago) and then we spotted a BART station, got on it and stayed all the way to Millbrae Station.  Home again for another night at the quirky floating box!

Day 10 ~ Golden Gate Park, Golden Gate Bridge & Sausalito

Once again we headed to the Millbrae Station and took BART to Union Square.  As mentioned earlier, there are several hotels near Union Square and fortunately for us the Westin Hotel is directly across the street.  We needed to use a restroom and never found any public ones at Union Square so headed to the hotel lobby; also purchased coffee and warmed our selves up before heading out sightseeing again. (www.westinstfrancis.com).

This time, we used our hop on – hop off tickets and got directly on the City Sightseeing bus for the Golden Gate Park loop.  Again, this was a very interesting route allowing us to see the Civic Center area again, the Palace of Fine Arts and Theatre,

Palace of Fine Arts & Theatre

and some of the beautiful Victorians in the Haight Ashbury district.  We got off the bus at Golden Gate Park and enjoyed an hour of exploring the Japanese Tea Gardens.   

Japanese Gardens

Koi Pond

Golden Gate Park

The bus was supposed to make a return in an hour but we waited nearly an hour and a half for one to come by; it took us back to the Westin Hotel.  Once again, we used their restrooms (thanks Westin!) and went out to wait for a bus to come by to return to Fisherman’s Wharf.  After a considerable wait the bus came but it was full; there’s no guarantee of getting on a bus so we tried the cable car.  Nope!  We’ll have to catch it another time.  So, we took a taxi ~ the cost was minimal and we were able to line up for the next sightseeing bus out to the Golden Gate Bridge and across to Sausalito.

Lining up for the bus is not the same as getting on ~ we waited about an hour despite being told the bus would be there in about 20 minutes.  Finally the bus came and we headed out to the Bridge ~ beautiful, of course!

Golden Gate from San Francisco side

Golden Gate from Sausalito

It should be noted that our bus driver was very aggressive; some Europeans on the bus commented that his bully-like behavior was exactly what they had read about being prevalent in the US.  That’s not a good impression to have left them with!  You might sense some frustration on my part with City Sightseeing . . . it's true.  There is a lot of competition for bus tours and I don't think we'd use this company again.  (www.tripadvisor.com/members-citypage/leawatkins/g60713)

We did cross the Bridge and go into Sausalito, which is charming. 

Sausalito Waterfront

We left the bus, enjoyed dinner and a couple hours of exploring the town and admiring San Francisco 's skyline, and then took the ferry across the harbor back to Fisherman’s Wharf. (www.oursausalito.com/sausalito-ferry.html)  Once again, we took off walking toward the BART station near the Hyatt Regency and called it a day.  We never did get to ride a cable car!

About the weather . . . San Francisco in May is generally cold, windy, and has a high chance of fog.  And, that is exactly what we got!  We are pretty familiar with the Seattle area in May and it can be similar so we should have been better prepared.  But we weren’t, or at least I wasn’t.  Let’s just say that capris and cute sneakers are not warm enough for SF in May, especially on the top of a double decker bus.

Day 11 ~ Silicon Valley

Our last day in the Bay area and we decided to explore Silicon Valley.  The community names were familiar to us; Cupertino, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park.  We started driving on a self-guided tour of company headquarters; Apple, Google, and Facebook.  Also drove and walked around Stanford University and while a bit lost we stumbled across the NASA Ames Research center and its impressive wind tunnel and blimp hangars, visible from the road.  It was interesting to see the tech companies, the university, and NASA and appreciate the collective impact they have made on the world . . . all in our lifetime!  Rather than list all those websites, we will let you, the reader, Google that!

Apple

NASA Ames Research Center

Facebook

Google

Stanford University

We returned to our quirky floating box and got ourselves organized for the next day’s journey to Yosemite.  At this point our patience with the floating box, the rooftop carrier, and with each other had started to wear thin . . . as we approached retirement we were concerned that we might not like each other all day every day.  My insight into retirement now is that is a valid concern!  All in all though, we enjoyed our few days sightseeing in San Francisco and the greater area.  It has a reputation of being a romantic city and it might have been if we were not staying in that quirky floating box!