Around San Francisco 15-18th October

Thursday - 15 We awoke to a fabulous view from our bed out over the lake and up to the mist covered hills beyond. The ducks were quacking and there was a slow drip of water from the tree down onto the van. Celso went fishing (of course) and Tris and I pottered about, fed the ducks and read a bit until we decided to get under way and head out for a drive around one of the big lakes in the region called Clear Lake. The countryside around here is so completely different from the coast where the Redwood are. The trees are small and spindly, many are draped in moss that hangs in ghostly fingers from the branches, most are turning into their winter colours of gold, red, orange or brown, the ground is covered in yellow brown grass (like hay), and where there is any cultivation there are endless vinyards, all the vines heavy with dark blue grapes. We stopped and did a bit of shopping in a town by the lake (that wasn't very clear at all but was full of a green gooey looking algae. Then we made our way to a state park in the area which was beautiful and full of quails, squirrels, deer and birds but it had started to rain again and so we made the snap decision to drive to San Francisco! On the map there seemed to be an easy route via the 175 back to the 101 and then straight down to SF, but it was not to be, the 175 had restricted access (no vehicles longer than 30ft, no trailers longer than 12ft etc etc) and turned out to be another of the roads that wound its way up and over the mountains. It was a bit hairy but not nearly as bad as THAT journey to Honeydew! I'm sure the views would have been great but again we were shrouded in mist!! And so here we are in south San Francisco, ready to go off early tomorrow to see the sights. We arrived via the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped on the headland just before to take a walk up and have a look over the bay. The bridge was swathed in fog, boats somewhere far below in the mist honked and bellowed, and the city looked like a dream. Did you know that in the two main cables of the bridge are many smaller cables that if laid end to end would circle the earth 3 times at the equator?!! Friday 16 We got up early (for us anyway!) at 7.30am and found our way to the BART which is a semi-underground system for San Francisco, limited stations and coverage but very fast and it whisked us into the centre of SF at Powell St. From there we took the old trolley (they call it the cable car) down those very steep streets with Tris and I sitting facing out into the road and Celso hanging on for dear life and ducking in when a tram or lorry came in the other direction. (I'm sure nothing like this would be allowed in the UK, the passengers hanging on to the running boards on both sides are so close to either parked traffic on one side or moving traffic on the other, in fact I'm really suprised it is allowed here with their law suit ways.) Anyway it was great fun and as we went over the brow of one hill we went from blazing sunshine into thick fog, apparently that is common for here in SF but it is certainly a shock to the system for those not expecting the sudden change in temperature from one side of a hill to another. We wandered along Fishermans wharf to pier 33 to buy our Alcatraz Tickets and then, with nearly 2 hours to wait for our ferry, went pack to pier 39 and all the shops and restaurants around the SF Aquarium. We had an amazing bowl of soup served inside a bread roll (they call it a sourdough roll) and then explored the shops. Half way out along the pier that old familiar smell of acidic fish and the honking of sea lions called us to the west side of the pier. The ladies were there in their hundreds, in fact SF is having a real problem with them, usually they number around 300 but for some reason this year they have around 1500 and the water polution and occurences of boat strikes are becoming a serious problem. They are much more genteel than the gents we saw in Newport, but the smell was just as lovely! They seemed much more playful with several doing side swims with one flipper in the air and others doing handstands against submerged posts. 1.10pm and we got onto the 12 min ferry ride to Alcatraz, a fascinating 2 hour exploration of the island revealed many of the myths; the Bird Man never had any birds on Alcatraz; the film The Rock wasn't filmed on Alcatraz; Al Capone was mad from syphylis by the time he was at Alcatraz; prison officers and their families lived on Alcatraz and loved it there; before it became Alcatraz the prison it was Fort Alcatraz and has a long military history though it was never actually involved in any fighting at all; there is no evidence that anyone ever succesfully escaped from Alcatraz out of the 36 attempts, 5 prisoners are unaccounted for but they think they probably died in the sea; there was no 'death row' facility at Alcatraz; the cells were absolutely minute (about 1.5 by 3m) and prisoners spent up to 23 hours a day in them; 'You are entitled to shelter, food and medical attention and nothing else' was the main moto of the prison, if you wanted anything more than that you had to earn it by good behaviour and by working, then they could spend some time outside in a small high walled recreation area or get books or correspondance courses from the library; it was definately a place of punishment rather than rehabilitation. Returning to the mainland we caught a VERY full rush hour time bus to Chinatown and ate a fantastic meal in a small restaurant that we found on a side street packed with Chinese, it was very cheap as we were eating in happy hour (from 3-5:30) and delicious, then a walk around the shops, a return journey on the BART and we were very pleased with ourselves but exhausted! Sat 17 A later wake up, a clean of the van and emptying the tanks etc meant that we didn't get under way until around 10:30am. An unsuccesful stop at the library where we had hoped to connect to the Internet meant that by 11:45 we were just beginning what we intended to do for the day - it was Tris' choice as it was so near his birthday and he wanted to go to the Exploratorium, a science based, hands on centre down near the Golden Gate Bridge. We parked up the van near a bus stop that would take us all the way there and then spent 4 1/2 happy hours playing with the exhibits - a fantastic place - a bit like @ in Bristol but better. With sore feet we trudged back to the bus stop and after a very long wait got a train back to our van. We stopped at a big shopping centre to go to a big bookshop that has Wifi but I couldn't get a connection and then we drove south and found a campsite. Sun 18 Up, showered and laundry done, we headed further south to San Jose where we went to the Winchester Mystery House. The house was built by a widow of the family of the Winchester Rifle fortune (supplied to most of the cowboys and the US army). This 4ft 1inch widow was convinced by a psychic that the misfortune that had fallen on her family (the death of her daughter at 6 weeks and her husband a few years later from TB) was due to the angry spirits of all the victims of the Winchester Rifles. In order to appease them she was to build a house and keep building..... and 38 years later when she died the building was still continuing and she has left behind the most bizarre mansion you are ever likely to see. She designed all of the building herself after consulting with the spirits in the seance room which only she had access to. It has doors that open onto walls, and one door that opens to an 8ft drop into a kitchen sink, another that opens from the first floor to the outside (with no stairs on the other side), there are windows in the floors, the number 13 features heavily with 13 windows in many rooms, chandaliers converted to have 13 candles, 13 sections in lead glass windows etc. The building cost $5,500,000, but that wasn't much for her as she had a $20,000,000 fortune pus an income of $1000 a day (and that was back at the start of the 19th Century), the shopkeepers would come out onto the street to serve her as she sat in her carriage as she was such a good customer, if she liked some cloth she would buy the whole bolt as she didn't want anyone else to have the same material as herself. She was the first in the area to have a shower, gas lamps that turned on and off at the flick of a switch and a generator for electricity. The house has 160 rooms, 43 bedrooms (although she never had guests), the pillars were all put in upside down to appease the spirits and the servants and the builders, who were paid in cash and could be fired and hired at any time, were not allowed to comment on the building or its design. It was a very interesting tour through the most extraordianary building I've ever been in. Then further south we went towards Monterey and stopped in a campsite with Wifi only to find that I couldn't connect again, there is something wrong with one of the modem drivers on the computer. PITA.