San Francisco

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Blog 10-04-17 San Francisco

We had a date this morning with Ginnie's friend Phyllis to venture into San Francisco and see the sights. Phyllis lives in Gilroy, a town 1 1/2 hrs south of the city, and has been a friend of Ginnie's for years and she was excited to show us the town.

We left the campground at 9 am and were on 101 North in a very short time, eager for our adventure. The traffic was moderate so we were able to sail right along. About 35 min up the road it was a different story, we encountered heavy traffic and it became stop and go. We were amazed at the way drivers let one another in at any given time, everyone was patient and courteous. The only ones who disturbed us were the motorcycle drivers who are allowed to run between the cars makeing a half lane all their own. We'd be sitting there when all of a sudden there was a buzz and a motorcycle passed us like a shot. Good luck to them if someone changed lanes all of a sudden, they'd be sailing through the air.

We did make it to San Fran and went across the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped at the north lookout to get our Nat'l Park books stamped. Nothing there but restrooms and droves of tourists. I conferred with my Park app and found that Fort Bragg was the place to go. It wasn't far so we wound our way around the hill and finally found a park official to ask about the stamp. He said it wasn't there but at the Visitor's Center just up the road, past the stables, 2nd real road turn left. We did find the visitor's center, looks like a church, but they had no bridge stamp because the Bridge is NOT a national park. It seems that there are 8 different sites that qualify for a stamp but not the bridge, it's a national historic site. So we stamped our books with the Ft Bragg stamp and went to the lookout just up the road.

It was a pretty spot and we took some pictures, then headed across the bridge again to go to Fisherman's Warf for lunch and some sight seeing. Finally found a parking lot but I didn't really look at the price of the parking until later and realized it would have been a forture but we ate lunch in a resturant that validates these tickets. Wow lucky for us! It would have cost us $24.00 for 2 hrs, sure cut the bill for lunch in half...

Our lunch was in a resturant on the 3rd floor overlooking the marina and the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. The waiters were all dressed in formal suits, white table cloths and pleasant Frank Sanotra music played, it was just perfect. We had a variety of fish dishes and everyone was very happy with their choices. The best was the sourdough bread served before lunch, I've never had better.

As we sat there the fog started rolling in and before long the bridge was almost invisible. There are pictures of the events. Sure glad we got to see the bridge in the sunlight.

After lunch it was time to head back to Gilroy because the dogs were waiting for their dinner and a walk. We had been gone longer than we wanted to be but they were happy to see us and seemed fairly calm especially after dinner.

We sat outside for a while and watched the almost full moon rise over the field next door. The weather was delightful for a time until a slight breeze came up which was chilly. Time for inside and another early bedtime.

Thanks to Phillis we had a wonderful day exploring the city and thanks to her VERY skillful driving we made it there and back safely.

Ginnie was amazed by the amount of cluster houses that are built in tiers along the hillside, covering the hills. They seemed to be stacked on one another and stuffed in as close as possible. Single family homes are very rare unless it is a multi-million dollar home sitting on the hilltops. No suburban lifestyle as we know it for the average person here.

After our experience today we were SO happy we made the choice to go way out around the city in order to get here yesterday. The GPS and Google Maps told us to take Rt 101 all the way through town and on to Gilroy but Phyllis warned us not to do that and we also talked to people in the campground the night before our trip here and they said no way go through town. So we mapped out our own route and it was just perfect, almost no traffic and we made it in really good time. Taking the motorhome through downtown would have been a nightmare

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