The Streets of San Francisco

It was not the day I had originally planned, but in the end it all turned out okay.

We started the morning by finding a Honda service place. It was fortuitous that there was one almost across the street from our hotel. So after a quick explanation of what the problem and a recommendation on where to eat breakfast, we headed out to explore the city by foot and mass transportation.

Breakfast was yummy with homemade scones, banana pancakes, homemade granola, and freshly squeezed cantalope juice. The Home Plate was a popular local restaurant just a block down the street. As we have found with everything in San Francisco, it was a tight squeeze inside a small space. But the service was excellent and Joe especially liked all of the baseball memorabilia adorning the walls.

Next was a nice walk to the waterfront. We walked by Fort Mason and Ghiradelli Square. Our mission was to purchase a 3-day Muni pass so that we could ride the buses, cable cars, and other modes of transportation around the city. We purchased our tickets and then stood in line for about 40 minutes waiting to ride one of the cable cars. It was worth the wait. We hung on as we rode up and down the hills on Hyde Street through Chinatown and almost to the end of the line where there were shops. It looked kind of like Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego.

Once we disembarked, we had to figure out how to get back to where we started or better yet how to get to Fisherman's Wharf. Of course our first attempt was to try to catch the a cable car on the same street going the opposite direction. But after the fifth one told us no room and "wait for the next one", we decided to try to find a bus. We had a map with what seemed like hundred different bus lines criss-crossing through the streets. We were pretty disoriented, so quickly found a Starbucks where I could download an app with a trip planner for SF on to my phone. 

After several more attempts we eventually made it to Fisherman's Wharf which sure smells a lot like fish! We found an old-fashioned penny arcade called Musee Mecanique. We all played several of the antique games, and it was really a lot of fun!  Of course some of those "antique" games, I clearly remember playing in my youth. You know, relics like Pong, Ms. Pacman, and Centipede.

By now it was getting pretty late in the day and we hadn't heard about the condition of my little red car. So after a phone call, I was informed that they'd need another day to figure out what the problem was. This did not make me happy since I had already postponed my plans to use the car to visit places outside of the city. and we only had one more day. One more bus trip and we arrived back at the Honda Service place to get a jacket out of the car. We were surprised when the service adviser told us the car was "fixed" or more accurately, they couldn't figure out what the problem was, but it had fixed itself when they "reset" the computer. They didn't charge me for the diagnostic and I got my car back which made me a much happier customer than I had been on the phone.

That evening, Joe headed on a bus in one direction to attend the Padres vs. the Giants baseball game and Zach, David and I headed in the opposite direction on a different bus for a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. The Pads lost, but Joe had fun attending the game at AT&T Park and eating garlic fries. The sun was setting, the wind was blowing, and the temperature was dropping, but we made it across the 1.7 mile span of the Golden Gate and back. The view was incredible and the noise of the cars rushing by was deafening. I loved it!

After the bridge, the three of us ate dinner at a restaurant in Ghiradelli Square and David topped off the evening with a Ghiradelli chocolate brownie sundae. I was starting to feel like we had this mass transit thing nailed until our trip back to the home via Muni 30. Needless to say, we rode the bus quite a bit longer than necessary, but with the help of our bus driver and several bus riders, we found our way back to our beds. My feet hurt from all of walking and chasing buses, but my heart was happy that we had accomplished several things on my "to do list" leaving only Alcatraz and Muir Woods for the following day.