San Francisco, California
San Francisco, the "city by the bay"
Because of our older son's interest, we took a tour of Stanford University near Palo Alto, south of the city. We had stayed north of San Francisco the night before, so we got up early to join traffic crossing the Golden Gate Bridge (which we never saw in its entirety due to heavy fog) and hurrying south towards Palo Alto. The free campus tour is worth a trip if you're ever in the area, even if you have no chidren planning to attend college :-) Built by heartbroken (and rich) parents in memory of their only son who died at age 15, it is sprawling and spacious and contains architectural details common in buildings erected before 1900. Fortunately there was little damage to most buildings during the 1906 earthquake, so most details are still there for modern visitors to view. The chapel alone, with its detailed mosaics and carvings, merits deeper scrutiny than we had time for. We spent most of the day at Stanford, and drove back into the city of San Francisco at the height of rush hour to check into our motor inn and find dinner on Fisherman's Wharf.
The next day we boarded a ferry to Alcatraz Island, famous for its roles as a military fort, military prison, and then high-security federal penetentiary in the mid-1900's. To escape from Alcatraz, you'd have to first get past all the guards, then swim 1/4 mile (?) through the frigid waters of the bay. The dock view shows the guards' families' quarters down below, and the prison itself at the top of the "Rock." We took an audio tour of the prison with headphones and cassette players and saw the tiny, stark cells (two are pictured here) in which the prisoners spent most of their day. Some of the famous inmates accommodated at Alcatraz were: "Machine Gun" Kelly; Al Capone; Robert Stroud, the famous "birdman" of Alcatraz; "Mickey" Cohen; "Creepy" Karpis; and "Doc" Barber. The prison closed in 1969; the island was returned to Native American hands for a short time in the 1970's but reverted to a national monument in the last two decades of the 1900's.
The ferry ride afforded us a great view of the city skyline from the bay, with the distinctive TransAmerica pyramid standing out. Back on the Wharf, we saw a street performer setting up to entertain tourists and perhaps earn a few coins. He played music on a boom box and moved about like a robot, to the delight of many children. What a contrast to the winos we saw at night sitting on the sidewalks with signs like, "Why lie? It's for beer," next to their coin containers.
We took a bus to Coit Tower on one of the hills overlooking the bay which was built in the 1930's and decorated inside with murals. The kids paid for the elevator ride to the observation level and took a couple of pictures of the city to the south, and the bay and Alcatraz to the north with Angel Island in the background and Pier 39 of Fisherman's Wharf in the foreground. From the top of the hill that the Tower was on, we decided to walk down to Washington Park and Columbus Ave. to catch the bus again. You have to wonder how people who live on these hilly streets get their cars into those garages (and how much they pay for the location)!
Dinner that night was in Chinatown, at a very busy place called House of Nan-King. As we perused the menu, the waitress asked if we'd ever eaten there before; we said "No," and she replied that she'd take care of us, only asking if we were very hungry or not, and how spicy we liked the food. We tried some new and different dishes, many of which we'd probably try again.
On our last full day in San Francisco, I had arranged to meet Diana, an on-line friend who lives in Vacaville (between "Frisco" and Sacramento). Diana graciously offered to come into the city to pick me up, then take me across the bay to Walnut Creek and the famous-to-quilters Thimble Creek Quilt Shop :-) We had a wonderful time in the store, had a picture taken of the two of us, and bought some fabric (of course). Then Diana (a second generation Italian) treated me to lunch at an Italian deli and other goodies. Driving back to the city we had time to detour through Golden Gate Park and see the flowers planted outside the Conservatory, a 100+ year old building presently in renovation, and walk around a little. Drove by the beautifully-painted Victorian houses pictured in a famous San Fran postcard that you can get almost anywhere in the city (they call them the "postcard houses") before returning to the motel. Diana rode up the elevator to our room and conversed briefly -- in Italian! -- with the other guests in the elevator who were speaking Italian. She got to meet my family and then gave us half of an Almond Torte that she had purchased at the deli...we had it for dessert the next two nights--yummy!
The rest of the family, in the meantime, had ridden one of the cable cars to the museum and learned how the system works. There are some parts of the cable car mechanism (that grabs the cable) that have to be replaced every 3-4 days! After the museum they rode out to the Pacific Ocean near Golden Gate Park and watched the sea lions basking in the sun (what little there was when the fog broke up), then by the Victorian houses before returning to the motel. Diana had recommended a good Italian restaurant in North Beach, but insisted that we couldn't miss the "sacripantina," a light Italian spongecake, made at Stella's on Columbus Ave. And it was absolutely delicious - make sure you try it if you're ever in the city!
As we left San Francisco, we had to stop at the south end of the Golden Gate bridge and get a picture with the kids, even if we couldn't see the whole bridge. My younger son's T-shirt talks about "Hotel Alcatraz," which offers "Guaranteed room with a view; 24-hour security; lifetime accommodations; catering to select clientele; bars in every room; all drinks are on the rocks." We spent the afternoon in San Jose, with the boys and my husband visiting the Tech Museum of Innovation while I wandered through the San Jose Quilt Museum (a small exhibit of about 35 traditional quilts from the early 1900's at the time I went; I believe they change the selection periodically). San Jose was just a stop to get us closer to Monterey, where we drove the next day and rented bicycles for a different view of the city and the coastline (yes, we skipped the world-famous Aquarium - it was the kids' choice to rent the bikes instead). We stayed overnight in Fresno just because it was close to Yosemite Park, where we would be going the following day.