Baywatch

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We awoke early and set off early for a day drip to the Bay area around San Francisco. The original plan was to spend a couple of nights in San Francisco, but when we checked the hotel prices we were shocked. And we searched everywhere online for something reasonable with no luck. I guess it was our fault for leaving it so late in planning. We had already visited San Francisco in March so we really didn't need to spend all that money, and repeat a lot of touring we had already done, so we decided to take only a day trip to the Bay area. That's the great thing about Sacramento, it's close enough to do said day trip. We took the Amtrak Capitol Corridor train to Emeryville near Oakland on the eastern side of the bay, then the connecting bus to the ferry building in San Francisco. It was very crowded in the ferry building, for we had stumbled upon the place on market day - with all the up scale well to do shoppers with their designer Starbuck's or Peet's coffee in one hand and their organic locally produced vegetables in the other. I'd fit in so well here, if were I a resident of the Bay area. We stood in line for breakfast, and then ate this standing up while waiting in another line to buy tickets to Sausalito. Sausalito is an expensive and small community across the bay on the northern side.

We boarded the ferry under a very grey and heavy sky, thick marine clouds. We wore sweaters, really the first time all summer I needed to wear a sweater. This is a passenger only ferry and took us across the bay right in front of Alcratraz and in the path of the container ships heading to and from Oakland. As we were getting closer and closer to Sausalito, I started to recognize a very unique yacht. This was a very remarkable coincidence because I saw this same boat this week in an online yahoo article. And I saw this very same yacht last year along the coast of Croatia I saw the online article this week which came from Barbados, and recognized the yacht immediately; that in itself is a good coincidence. I know now the yacht cost $300 million to make, it is called "A" and it's owned by a multi-billionaire Russian. And now, I saw the very same yacht moured off Sausalito on the other side of the globe! I think the coincidence is astonishing. This yacht attracts a lot of attention, people all rushed to one side of our ferry to photograph the yacht, and there were numerous other sailboats circling it to get a better look. By itself, it's hard to gauge the size and scale of it, but once you see a person on deck, or the other sail boats, or the small boats leaving the larger yacht do you realize just how monstrous this yacht is. And I've now see it twice.

We docked in Sausalito just as the marine air was starting to break, the deep blue sky and sun were breaking through and it turned into a fabulous day, not hot but brilliantly sunny. We walked up and down the waterfront, called the Bridgeway, for a while stopping in the shops, small galleries and expensive glass shops. There is a lot of money in Sausilito, there is a large marina and there are many house boats, probably that's why the yacht A and its multi-billionaire owner is here. But sadly not enough money in my pockets to buy these locally crafted glass art, or paintings. We also stopped into see a local photographer who specialized in landscapes, my favorite photos. But sadly, also, these prints are too large for my suitcase and too much money for my wallet. We ate a nice lunch in a nice restaurant but it was soon time to leave, we were running out of things to do. We returned by afternoon ferry back across the San Francisco Bay, past the yacht called A, past Alcatraz and all the while watching the skyline of San Francicso get closer and closer, larger and larger.

We hopped on a bus and made our way to the cable car museum. This is a free museum; and it's a living museum. The San Francisco cable cars have been running for more than 100 years using the same technology. The only difference is that they have replaced steam powered cables with electric. There are four giant looped cables running 4 different lines and they are all powered from this living museum. Consequently, it's quite loud in there. The four motors are pulling the cables from inside this big building and we are able to stand right above and watch this tug and pull in action. We read all the descriptions of the displays which describe how it all works, and a short history. The city nearly lost the entire cable car system in the 1940's, but with a public outcry it was saved, and now it's a national heritage protected from modernization. These cable cars are the last remaining cars left in the entire world pulled by under the road cables. It's always great to see things preserved from our history, for we are products of history. The F Market Street cars are electric street cars and another example of preserving the past. San Francisco has revitalized the waterfront and Embarcadero after the 1989 Earthquake, they removed the double decker road and installed a street car system, with imported old street cars from around the world. Let's just hope we can preserve more from our past.

We took a couple of more buses to get ourselves to the top of Telegraph Hill, where we ascended the Coit Tower. We had to wait for the tiny elevator to take up and take down the other tourists who also thought the Coit Tower would be a fine place to visit on this clear week-end day. Crammed into this tiny elevator about 10 of us at a time rose to the top of the 210 feet tower. Sorry, now that I'm in America, all measurements are in feet and inches. The Coit Tower gets great views in all directions. It's about 20 feet in diameter with no roof, there is glass in the windows to shelter us from the wind. The day was getting long, and it was time for us to start our return all the way to Sacramento; remember this was only a day trip. We took the elevator down to the botton of the Coit tower, a bus down to the bottom of Telegraph Hill, at Fisherman's Wharf, then an F Market Street Car along the water's edge back to the Ferry Building. We stopped for a quick Mexican dinner at an upscale fast food restaurant, or is that a downscale good restaurant? We caught the Amtrak throughway bus (coach) to take us across the Bay to Emeryville, where we caught the train back to Sacramento. It was a long day, but a fantastic day, because the weather was clear, we saw the yacht called A, we saw the very interesting living museum that is the cable car museum and looked at all of San Francisco from above.

I'm not finished yet with my San Francisco Bay adventure. Two days after, I took another day trip, this time to Berkeley, famous for its university. Another trip on the Amtrak Capitol Corridor. Another clear day in the Bay area, and this day was warm, quite unusual for the area. I got to Berkeley 1 1/2 hours after leaving Sacramento. I was able to hop on a uptown bus and it immediately took me up the hill toward the university. There was some construction impeding our motion, so I jumped off and walked the rest of the way just to look around. The University of California at Berkeley is situated on a hill overlooking the San Francisco Bay, and on a day like today without any marine air the views are spectacular. I think, though I'm not really sure, it might have been the first day of classes at the school - it was quite busy. But the place seemed more full of freshmen than anyone else. There were a lot of booths set up advertising clubs, and most of these were Christian clubs. There was some free stuff given to the freshmen. I walked into the busy bookstore, but decided on not wandering through the section with texbooks, this was mayhem. I bought a couple of university T-shirts, and spent my time people watching. I took the elevator to the top of the Sather Tower for the grand panoramic views of the entire university and the entire bay. Stretched out in front of me is the Golden Gate Bridge far off in the distance. I was able to watch the entire San Francisco Bay from this vantage. Twice a day for 15 minutes each time, they play the Carrillon bells on top of this tower, I missed this performance, unfortunately. If I had known about this, I would have timed my arrival in Berkeley with the bells.

I left the university and walked off campus and through the town of Berkeley. I walked past plenty of hippies left over from the 1960's. Plenty of people with patterned shirts and pants with flowers or stripes, tie dyed shirts, with dreadlocks and the smell of pot. I was accosted by one man asking for money, and saw another just flaked out on the pavement with a handwritten note on a piece of cardboard that declared that he just wants to get stoned. There are plenty of independent bookstores, I entered a couple of them, but passed the Buddist bookshop. And there are plenty of independent restaurants. In fact Berkeley is rather devoid of chain stores, you have to look hard for a Starbucks, McDonald's and Safeway. It doesn't really look like a typical American town or suburb. And that, you can be sure, is what makes Berkeley so appealing for many.

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