Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Visiting Saints Joe and Frank
We landed in Saint Joe on Friday, and drove to Saint Frank on Saturday. Okay, San Jose and San Francisco if you insist. On Sunday after the movie (see below) we took off for home.
First, we found a place called Vesuvio’s in Saint Clara, er I mean Santa Clara, right next to San Jose, which is an odd local Italian place with good food and an odd way of serving. We paid for our drinks at the counter but the bartender and the counter lady had to have a yelling match in two languages to sort out that, yes, we were supposed to get beverages that were already paid for. Odd, that, but it’s a good restaurant over all, on El Camino Real. That was on Friday evening, and besides soaking in the spa by the pool (it was way too cold to swim, at least for a Mojave Desert rat) that was all we did that day. Saturday we were up early and off to San Francisco in time to be on the streets of Chinatown by 9:40. There’s a parking garage on Clay Street that costs only three bucks a weekend day with validation, so we used it and had a really good time wandering around what looks like it may be the only really authentic China Town left in the USA. Some of the families living there probably have done so since Statehood if not before. We had Dim Sum for lunch at the Asia Café (yummy stuff) and also visited an art festival next door in North Beach.
An interesting thing about San Francisco is that there is no level ground in the city away from the waterfront. Honest. The reason Lombard street has that incredibly crooked block is that it’s a hundred feet along and two hundred feet down. From a few blocks away it looks like a rock garden. The good thing about San Francisco is that the weather is quite mild. It was a stinking hot 76 degrees while we were there, making even that humidity bearable.
After lunch we took a cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf on the Embarcadero. A cable car is an interesting contraption, saved by National Monument status. There is no way anyone could introduce such a thing today. I got to ride on the outside, holding on to a pole, dangling over the street. It’s fun and the thing only goes seven miles per hour, but imagine OSHA if you wanted your factory workers to cross the plant like that. Anyway, on Fisherman’s Wharf we went to the Aquarium of the Bay, which has a bunch of tanks you walk under. The things a starfish does to a smelt are not pretty, I have to tell you, and a few less little kids might have been nice, too. Then we took a streetcar to Ghirardelli Square and bought chocolate at the original chocolate shop. It’s all gone, so I can’t offer to share any with you. Tough for you, huh?
After Ghirardelli Square we retrieved our car and I got to drive down that Lombard Street hill, which isn’t all that difficult but really looks like it would be. People live on that block, and have driveways and everything. It probably costs extra to live there, although that street would be a great nuisance after a while, or so I imagine. And there are always tourists winding down past your door at all hours. And even snow once, or so it appears in that ad I’ve seen lately. But from the bottom we took off toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Across the bridge we headed for Muir Woods, one of the few remaining stands of native Coast Redwoods. The trees are impressive. There’s the cross-section of a trunk that fell in 1939, one thousand rings from center to bark. Let’s see, at a ring per year that makes it, uh, really really old, huh? There’s the bicentennial tree, which first drank in the sunlight about the time Paul Revere was making his famous ride. It’s a fine strapping young thing. It’ll grow up some day, I’m sure, into a big tree like its many neighbors in the grove. The redwoods are not as big around as the giant sequoias found inland, but they are quite a bit taller. They are taller, in fact, than most of any city in the world, and that’s a fact. If you’d like to be impressed simply by age and sheer survival, Muir Woods is the place for you. They live, in fact, ten times or more longer than humans. And there’s a gift shop.
After Muir Woods (it was a heck of a day) we found a local chain called Izzy’s, which served me the best steak I’ve ever eaten. No kidding. If it were closer I’d go back next weekend. Yum and a half.
Then we drove back to San Jose, five bucks for the inbound toll and through San Francisco on US 101. The famous US 101; it’s not route 66, but it’s the original West Coast Highway.
Sunday we stayed in San Jose, touring the Winchester Mystery House. Mrs. Winchester was the widow of the second president of the Winchester Rifle company, and she apparently took it into her head that she needed to appease the spirits of those killed with Winchester products. So she moved to the west coast, bought a farm house, hired a crew of carpenters, and kept them busy for 36 years building room after room of addition onto the house. It now has 160 rooms, 13 bathrooms (she had a thing for thirteen) strange staircases, and as you might imagine, a number of construction oddities. She believed she would not die so long as she kept building. She died in 1926. Not even the spirits could prevent that, although she was very old, which is something, I suppose.
Then after lunch at an Irish restaurant in a mall (it was fine but I don’t remember the name anyway) we went to the movies. Which is the story of the weekend that confirmed for me that San Francisco is indeed one of my favorite cities, and that I really wish I’d have gotten to see Muir woods the first time I visited, when there was no parking to be found. That was in 1973. Luckily, the intervening 33 years did nothing to diminish the pleasure of the visit to the Woods, or to the City by the Bay. If only it were less humid, it would be perfect.
First, we found a place called Vesuvio’s in Saint Clara, er I mean Santa Clara, right next to San Jose, which is an odd local Italian place with good food and an odd way of serving. We paid for our drinks at the counter but the bartender and the counter lady had to have a yelling match in two languages to sort out that, yes, we were supposed to get beverages that were already paid for. Odd, that, but it’s a good restaurant over all, on El Camino Real. That was on Friday evening, and besides soaking in the spa by the pool (it was way too cold to swim, at least for a Mojave Desert rat) that was all we did that day. Saturday we were up early and off to San Francisco in time to be on the streets of Chinatown by 9:40. There’s a parking garage on Clay Street that costs only three bucks a weekend day with validation, so we used it and had a really good time wandering around what looks like it may be the only really authentic China Town left in the USA. Some of the families living there probably have done so since Statehood if not before. We had Dim Sum for lunch at the Asia Café (yummy stuff) and also visited an art festival next door in North Beach.
An interesting thing about San Francisco is that there is no level ground in the city away from the waterfront. Honest. The reason Lombard street has that incredibly crooked block is that it’s a hundred feet along and two hundred feet down. From a few blocks away it looks like a rock garden. The good thing about San Francisco is that the weather is quite mild. It was a stinking hot 76 degrees while we were there, making even that humidity bearable.
After lunch we took a cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf on the Embarcadero. A cable car is an interesting contraption, saved by National Monument status. There is no way anyone could introduce such a thing today. I got to ride on the outside, holding on to a pole, dangling over the street. It’s fun and the thing only goes seven miles per hour, but imagine OSHA if you wanted your factory workers to cross the plant like that. Anyway, on Fisherman’s Wharf we went to the Aquarium of the Bay, which has a bunch of tanks you walk under. The things a starfish does to a smelt are not pretty, I have to tell you, and a few less little kids might have been nice, too. Then we took a streetcar to Ghirardelli Square and bought chocolate at the original chocolate shop. It’s all gone, so I can’t offer to share any with you. Tough for you, huh?
After Ghirardelli Square we retrieved our car and I got to drive down that Lombard Street hill, which isn’t all that difficult but really looks like it would be. People live on that block, and have driveways and everything. It probably costs extra to live there, although that street would be a great nuisance after a while, or so I imagine. And there are always tourists winding down past your door at all hours. And even snow once, or so it appears in that ad I’ve seen lately. But from the bottom we took off toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Across the bridge we headed for Muir Woods, one of the few remaining stands of native Coast Redwoods. The trees are impressive. There’s the cross-section of a trunk that fell in 1939, one thousand rings from center to bark. Let’s see, at a ring per year that makes it, uh, really really old, huh? There’s the bicentennial tree, which first drank in the sunlight about the time Paul Revere was making his famous ride. It’s a fine strapping young thing. It’ll grow up some day, I’m sure, into a big tree like its many neighbors in the grove. The redwoods are not as big around as the giant sequoias found inland, but they are quite a bit taller. They are taller, in fact, than most of any city in the world, and that’s a fact. If you’d like to be impressed simply by age and sheer survival, Muir Woods is the place for you. They live, in fact, ten times or more longer than humans. And there’s a gift shop.
After Muir Woods (it was a heck of a day) we found a local chain called Izzy’s, which served me the best steak I’ve ever eaten. No kidding. If it were closer I’d go back next weekend. Yum and a half.
Then we drove back to San Jose, five bucks for the inbound toll and through San Francisco on US 101. The famous US 101; it’s not route 66, but it’s the original West Coast Highway.
Sunday we stayed in San Jose, touring the Winchester Mystery House. Mrs. Winchester was the widow of the second president of the Winchester Rifle company, and she apparently took it into her head that she needed to appease the spirits of those killed with Winchester products. So she moved to the west coast, bought a farm house, hired a crew of carpenters, and kept them busy for 36 years building room after room of addition onto the house. It now has 160 rooms, 13 bathrooms (she had a thing for thirteen) strange staircases, and as you might imagine, a number of construction oddities. She believed she would not die so long as she kept building. She died in 1926. Not even the spirits could prevent that, although she was very old, which is something, I suppose.
Then after lunch at an Irish restaurant in a mall (it was fine but I don’t remember the name anyway) we went to the movies. Which is the story of the weekend that confirmed for me that San Francisco is indeed one of my favorite cities, and that I really wish I’d have gotten to see Muir woods the first time I visited, when there was no parking to be found. That was in 1973. Luckily, the intervening 33 years did nothing to diminish the pleasure of the visit to the Woods, or to the City by the Bay. If only it were less humid, it would be perfect.
