San Fransisco

Trying to find a campground in the Napa and area proved to be very unsuccessful!  Everything was booked solid.  Ray and I have never prebooked more then a day or two ahead.  This has served us well on both of our trips across the country and have had to stay in a Walmart parking lot only once, and that was only because by the time we had stopped Ray was too tired to drive the 5 miles off the main roadway to get to a campground.  That was four years ago in northern Montana.  So after trying to call every campground from Napa down to San Fransisco, I did manage to find us a spot right in San Fransisco just south of the Golden Gate bridge,,,,,,supposedly.  We left Napa with Ray and I in the lead.  We had the address to the campsite punched into our GPS as did Vonnie and Russ.  As it would of course happen, we were in the wrong lane coming off the bridge and without slamming Ray’s foot on the brakes, he could not get over into the proper lane.  This has happened to us on another trip, so you would think that we would have been prepared and pay closer attention.  But crossing the bridge and looking at the scenery was too overwhelming for me, the navigator.  So away we go into downtown San Fransisco with Vonnie and Russ following.  We zig zagged our way block after block, a couple of times leaving Russ behind due to red lights.  At one point he did catch up to us just as we were signalling to turn left.  Russ called on the walkie talkie and said “shouldn’t we be turning right, onto the 101”?  My come back to that was “GPS is saying to turn left, so we are going to turn left”.  Russ’s GPS (same year of Dodge trucks) was telling him to turn right onto the 101.  So, because we are in the lead,,,, we all turn left and then have to make an immediate hard right hand turn.  Remember we are each towing 28 foot plus trailers and trying to maneuver through narrow downtown traffic lanes.  Ray was cursing so I can only imagine what was going on in Vonnie and Russ’s truck!!  After a few more turns the GPS puts us onto the 101…….ARG!!!!  Had we gone with what Russ was saying, we would have been on the 101 about five minutes earlier and saved our sanity! We finally find our campsite, which is basically a parking lot with plug-ins.  But they did have laundry facilities and also the real bonus was they had a free shuttle bus down to Fisherman’s Wharf.  Our site was so close to Vonnie and Russ’s, that when our slides were open, we could pass butter back and forth between us!!!

 We took the shuttle downtown and were dropped off near the shopping district.  The driver directed us to a shop where we could purchase a bus pass, that is similar to a “hop on, hop off” system.  This pass included the famous cable cars.  We walked for blocks peering into different shops.  I think the Vonz was drooling at the shopping prospects, but she did contain herself!  We did of course have a Starbucks while we decided our course of action for the day.  We were in agreement that we all wanted to visit Fisherman’s Wharf and ride the Cable Cars.  Russ found out which bus would take us down to the Wharf, so after about an hour of being in the shopping district, we caught a very old “trolley” bus.  It was unique in itself, but some of the characters we saw on the bus where pretty comical.  There was the big fellow who was wearing a huge red crown and sitting beside him was the cutest pug dog dressed for the occasion!

Vonz on the street car

We got off the streetcar at the entrance of Fishermans Wharf.  It was amazing!!  The smells and sights of the wharf!!!!  Not only the smell of the ocean but also the smell of the foods from different restaurants was almost too much for us to bear!! It was nearing lunch, and we didn’t want to eat at the first restaurant we came to, so decided to tour the wharf first and make a decision later.  There were all kinds of shops to poke through.  From jewllery stores, to “made in china” gift shops.  There were kiosks selling cold drinks, fish and chips, or ice cream.  High end restaurants and cheaper restaurants.  We finally settle on a restaurant that served fish and chips and cold beer.  Vonnie and I had some fancy looking margaritas.  The colder the better as it was very hot!

Alcatraz

We rode the Cable Car from the Wharf up to Chinatown.  We only had to wait in line for about 20 minutes to catch it.  The Cable car begins (or maybe ends???) near the Wharf.  The “car” is driven onto a “roundabout” where it is manually turned directions by two men.

They cram quite a few people onto each car, some have to sit inside were it was very hot, others are lucky to sit outside (as we were) and some just stand on the edge and hang on!  It is quite interesting to see.  One young man had been standing inside where he said it was “too hot” so he came and stood on the step in front of me and hung on to the hand bar.  He did know of ruin my view!  Prior to him being in front of me, I could see all the traffic stopping for us and the pedestrians on the sidewalks.  After he came in front of me, my view became his belly!!!  It was very interesting watching the “conductor” (not sure if that is what they are called) operate the cable car.  He was pulling and pushing on a long handle that jutted up from the bottom of  the car.

A little history on the cable cars “borrowed” from Wikipedia.  San Fransisco’s Cable Cars are the last manually operated system and is an icon of the city.  Between 1873 - 1890 there were 23 cable car lines in operation.  Today, only three lines remain.  In 1979 the system had become unsafe and was closed for 7 months for repairs and again in 1982 for a complete rebuilding to the cost of $60 million.  This rebuild included complete replacement of 69 city blocks of tracks and cable channels, the car “barn” and powerhouse, new propulsion equipment and repair or rebuild of 37 cable cars.  The cable cars are operated by a cable running below which is held by a grip that extends from the car through a slit in the street surface between the rails.  Each cable is 3.2 cm in diameter, running at a constant speed of 15.3 km/h and driven by a 510 horsepower electric motor located in the central power house via a set of self-adjusting sheaves.  Each cable has 6 steel strands and each strand contains 19 wires wrapped around a sisal rope core.  To stop and start the movement of the car, the gripeman closes and opens the grip around the cable.    (Had to use wikipedia, because I could not explain all of this,,,,,,because I don’t even understand it!!! LOL)  How does this thing stop itself when going down all those steep hills, you ask?  I wondered the same thing on the first hill we went down which almost gave me a heart attack looking at it!  Rest assured….again using good old Wikipedia……

There are three sets of brakes (thank goodness for that!!!!)  Metal brake shoes on the front and back wheels, which the gripman can operate via a pedal located next to the grip.  Wooden brake blocks between the wheels that are pressed against the track when the gripman pulls a lever bringing the car to a halt.  The four blocks are made from Douglas Fir and can produce a smell of burning wood when in operation (oh,,THAT was what I could smell!!!).  The are replaced every few days!   Lastly, an emergency brake consisting of a piece of steel, which hangs under the car and is pushed into the track slot when the gripman pulls a lever.  it wedges tightly into the slot and often has to be removed with a welding torch.

A “gripman”.  And I called him a conductor!!

We got off the cable car in Chinatown to tour around there.  Everyone said that we should eat in Chinatown.  Well we were all thankful that we had eaten on the wharf, as the smells in Chinatown were like an assault on our noses, never mind our bellies.  Every “restaurant” was tiny and dirty looking.  It would have been great to purchase something as a moment, but nothing intrigued us to buy.  We did pass a great looking tea house.

Ray wanted to buy himself a hat

We stopped in at a Hilton for a drink.  Ray ordered a “Michael Lobe” beer and I had the worst glass of wine I have ever tasted.  Vonnie and Russ were fine with their drinks.  We then asked one of the hotel workers where we might find a nice little “bar”.  We were directed to a small corner bar called Cafe Zoetrope, which was right near we needed to meet the shuttle back to the camp ground.  Turns out this “cafe” is owned by Francis Ford Coppola, who just happened to be dining outside.  Being the cool kat Canadians that we are, we didn’t even know who he was until it was pointed out to us by a loud mouth tourist from some southern state.  Anyway this very nice little place had the coolest bar, which is where we plunked our sorry tired butts.  We all ordered a drink and the bar appeared to have every kind of alcohol you could ask for.  Vonnie casually asks the young bartender if they had any Fireball.  The cute little snotty bartender replied  to her “no we do not,,,,this is an adult bar”.  Poor Vonz was so insulted.  So insulted in fact that a couple of hours later after knocking over her 2nd glass of wine, she got us “Washed Out”.  Ha ha,,, it was funny as heck really because Vonnie was not drunk, but talks with her hands an awful lot!!!