Richard & Sylvia's RV Adventures

Day 50 & 51 Friday, April 20, 2007 and Saturday, April 21, 2007

Friday…. a day of rest and maintenance

After the nice day yesterday in Napa Valley we took a day off to take care of some normal daily maintenance activities around “the house”.  We also rested up and relaxed by biking around the base and taking Lucy for some long walks.

Saturday – San Francisco

Today was our first day to visit San Francisco.  We could have driven; however, we decided to drive to Concord, CA (45 minutes) and take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) metro into the city from there (50 minutes).  Saturday was an overcast day with rain threatening in the afternoon; however, we were excited to see the city and the sites.

After getting off the BART we surfaced at Powell and Market Streets and purchased an all day passport on the city public transportation system that included the famous San Francisco Trolley.  The turn around for the trolley was right there at Market and Powell so we watched as the trolley pulled in and was manually turned around on a “lazy susan” type device!

We hopped aboard with Sylvia sitting inside and with Richard standing on the outer step rail and holding on like the guy in the picture above.  This was pretty exciting to be hang on with one hand and taking pictures as we rolled down the street with the other hand!

We road the cable car down to the Fisherman’s Wharf area and the walked directly to Ghirardelli Square, built in 1893 as Domingo Ghirardelli’s chocolate factory. 

The factory was moved in the 60’s but still has a Ghirardelli cafe and candy store where we immediately ordered some fabulous hot chocolate and purchased some chocolates before leaving.

Now that we warmed up with the hot chocolate, we grabbed a bus and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge.  We were determined to get our exercise and walk across the bridge (1 3/4 miles) hoping to catch a bus back across from the other side.

The bridge was quite something to behold!  The bridge is named for the deep Golden Gate Strait (400 feet deep) that it spans.  It was opened in May of 1937, is 1 3/4 miles long, the towers rise 746 feet; it was designed to withstand strong winds, able to swing up to 27 feet.

You get a really good view of the San Francisco skyline from the bridge.

Well we made it across the bridge and looked for the bus we hoped to take back but found that there was no such bus and so we hoofed it quickly back across as the sky began to open up with some sprinkling of rain.  We were lucky in that it only sprinkled very lightly and so we really did not get wet; however, we were a bit concerned that we would; so, we made it back over the bridge quicker than we did going across the first time!!

We grabbed a quick bite to eat in at Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store across the street from Washington Square Park in North Beach area.  And then made a bee line to the bus to get back to the BART for the trip home. 

A very nice day…. and healthy with that long walk across and back on the Golden Gate Bridge.  Got to get back for at least one more day to see some more sites of San Francisco…

posted by Richard @ 11:35 PM