Day one: Northern California Coast trip

One day over iced green tea at our favorite Japanese restaurant, my dad and I hatched a plan for a nice little road trip through Northern California.  I had mentioned how my little sister Brookie expressed interest in going up to Monterey this summer like her and I did the summer before. I suggested that the family go up there all together. My dad said that he would be interested in going further north to Point Reyes instead. I thought heck, while up there, why not go up to Redwood National Park and make it a road trip.

So we did.

 

My dad, little sister Brookie and I embarked on this trip on Sunday. We flew into San Jose Airport from John Wayne in Orange County. We were supposed to get into the Bay Area at around 12:30 but thanks to my forgetting to take my purse, we ended up missing that flight. Thankfully we had booked through Southwest, and were on the 1:20 flight up with the only penalties being slightly more expensive tickets. Try that with United, or another airline. My forgotten purse would have cost us over $300.

 

Unfortunately, the mistake cost us some time in San Francisco. After picking up our splendid gold Dodge Magnum rental car we began to make our way into the city. On our way into San Francisco there was a police car zigging and zagging across the freeway slowing us all down to a crawl, and sometimes a stop. We threw out ideas as to what may be happening up ahead: accident, high speed chase, etc. As we were passing the San Francisco airport a motorcade came onto the freeway surrounded by even more police cars. Once on the freeway (and in the fast lane) we were allowed to pass it. We passed a charter bus that said “press” on the window, a second bus that said “pool” on the window, a car that said “staff” with guys looking quite a bit like secret service in it, and about four more vehicles filled with secret service. Someone important was going somewhere, that was for sure.

 

 

 

Once in the city we made our way to Union Square where our hotel, Kensington Park was.

 

Typical SF buildings:

 

After passing the hotel twice and having to deal with the long drawn out turn around system in one-way streets we FINALLY got there. The hotel is the old Elk’s Lodge, and is likely 100 years old. Inside there are beautiful painted ceilings and beams. The stately hotel is still used by the Elks today, they occupy the first 5 floors of the 15 story building.

 

While the downstairs was beautiful in its old grandeur the rooms were beautiful for their clean and modern design. The rooms were chic without the shabby with black and white furniture and a beautiful marble bath.

 

After checking in we decided to be tourists and take the cable car down to Fisherman’s Warf. On the way we passed the buses from the motorcade we saw earlier on the freeway.

 

Other pictures from the ride:

 

 

People loved taking pictures of the cable cars… and I loved taking pictures of people taking pictures of the cable cars.

 

One of the Gumball 3000 rally cars. One of the girls from the car took pictures of our cable car.

 

Coit tower:

 

 

Once at Fisherman’s Warf we wondered around looking at the sites. We were all very hungry since we hadn’t eaten since 8 that morning, unless you count the bags of peanuts on the plane. After looking at a good portion of the Warf we got some Dungeness crab from Peir 9. The food was good but way over priced considering you only got a plate of crab, no sides. From the table, though, we could look across the bay to the Golden Gate Bridge. What a view that was.

 

Tourists with strang hats

Oysters that come with a free side of food poisoning (note the green color). There were a lot of places up here that did bbq oysters. We never did try that.

The restaurant had bibs, Brookie was too good for it, but my dad and I were not. I had crab roasted on butter and garlic, my dad had seafood with tomatoe sause. They didn’t take the crab out of the shell on his so he actually needed the bib.

The view from the restaurant

Seqway tours. That’s right… tours on seqways. They all had helmets and vests on too. You can see the bridge in the background if you look for it.

 

After dinner we wondered around the docks where the fishing boats unload their catch. I had a lot of fun with my camera here:

Then, we found a little, free Maritime museum. It was full of all sorts of old Carnival games and devices. There were numerous fortune telling machines, and those ones where you squeeze on the lever and the lights go up and down a sign board that tells you that you are hot, or ugly or what ever the scale is for the certain machine.

 

Behind the museum was a WWII submarine. My grandfather was a commander on a sub back in WWII. He was rather lucky, we learned that over 20% of submarine volunteers (they all choose to go on the boats) died in combat, which is higher than any other navy position other than aviation. This sub had made it through, as did my grandfather’s. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, but still a great thing to see up close. We didn’t get to go on board since it was so close to closing, but I’ve been on one in the past. All the spaces and the doors are so small, I can’t understand how people can run around down there during combat. Must have been a lot of bruised heads.

 

We walked over to Gharadelli square after the museum for some hot chocolate and to see that very nice part of the warf area.

After we had our drinks we went back to the cable car stop to get back to the hotel. The line was very long and for about 40 minutes no cars came. Limo drivers were going up and down the line soliciting the services to the cold tourists. My dad, using his iphone, plotted a walking course back to the hotel. It wasn’t far in theory, but we all knew how many times we went up and down hills in that two miles from the hotel to the warf.

 

Just as we were about to start walking or grab a cab, a cable car moved. One of the workers apologized to us. He explained that Obama was at a rally at a hotel (re: motorcade) along the route and they had to stop the cars until he left. That was twice the man kept us waiting yesterday. Just to come to a city where he has pretty much every vote available. To prove that point he set a fund raising record: nearly 8 million dollars in one night, from 200 faithful followers. Those oxi-moron-ic rich dems gave up nearly $40,000 a piece. Damn… all to a man who wants to take it all away from them if elected to give to those people who couldn’t figure out how to make that much money. This falls on the mild side of what crazy things I will see and hear about on this trip though. I swear, there are times when I have to wonder if I am even in America.

Pictures of the cable cars while we waited:

Once we got back to Union Square we walked around a little more before going to the hotel and going to sleep.

Funny location of window right where her goods are.

Looking down a hole in the middle of the sidewalk