Day 45 – April 24 – San Francisco Day 2

What a day!  We left for San Francisco around 11 with Rick driving.  We were not using the GPS to get into the city and that was our first mistake.  I really don’t know where we were but it was the wrong place.  I turned on the GPS to get us back on track.  The 40-mile drive turned into more like 60 miles.

We had debated on doing the bus tour today but in the end decided we would just do our own thing.  We got to Fisherman’s Wharf again and stopped to drop of Rick and Mary at the cable car turn-around.  I drove the car and we planned to follow them to the end of the line and snap some photos of them on the cable car.  While we were waiting for Rick and Mary to get on the cable car, Dorrie and I found a parking spot so we walked around Ghirardelli Square for awhile.  We stopped and bought some chocolate squares for both us and Rick and Mary.  Then we went to see if the Otto's were on the cable car yet.

Rick is inside waving to us

This is a car going the other direction

Their cable car - some of the buildings along the route

Still behind them

After about a 40-minute wait they finally boarded the car and were on their way.  We stayed behind the cable car most of the way, but at one point they went down a street we could not drive on and we ended up in front of them.  The end of the line was in the financial district of the city so I tried to circle the block and pick them up.  This turned out to be mistake number two for the day.

There was construction on the street I turned down and we drove several blocks before we could turn back towards the direction we wanted.  It took about 30 minutes of driving – trying to keep from hitting the people crossing the streets both legally and illegally.  I don’t know what those people do, but they sure were not working today!  It was around 1:30 or 2 o’clock but the sidewalks were full of people and they all wanted on the other side of the street.

We finally got back to pick up Rick and Mary.  I headed to Chinatown so we could get a picture of the gate at the entrance to Chinatown.  We had been there before and Rick and Mary weren't interested in walking the streets.   We finally got to the cross streets with the gate and I pulled over in an illegal space for Rick and Dorrie to jump out for pictures.

Gate to Chinatown

While they were doing that, I cleverly moved to the passenger seat and let Rick drive - I had enough of city driving for the day.  Now I was doing the navigation – but didn’t really know where we were on the map and got us lost – mistake number three.

We got back on course with Dorrie’s help and turned our attention to getting to the Golden Gate Bridge.  We were going along when Dorrie realized we were close to the famous ground of homes known as the “post card row”.  So were detoured to the Alamo Square area to see and photograph the “painted ladies” as the homes are called.  The houses in this area are extremely interesting.  See for yourself.

The following pictures were all taken around Alamo Square Park

 

Post Card Row homes

Here are some close up views of the details on these homes.

 

Flowers in Alamo Square Park

After more pictures we continued on our way to the Golden Gate.  Yesterday the sky was clear and the bridge was completely visible.  Today the top of the bridge is covered with fog.  We all agreed it was a good thing we did the boat cruise yesterday instead of waiting for today.

 

The drive over the bridge was uneventful and we stopped on the vista point on the north shore to take some more pictures.

It was now time to head for home and I turned on the GPS to take us back – no more guessing and thinking we know what we are doing.