{"id":826,"date":"2012-05-29T21:41:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T02:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=826"},"modified":"2012-05-29T21:41:05","modified_gmt":"2012-05-30T02:41:05","slug":"vacation-day-7-walking-the-golden-gate-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=826","title":{"rendered":"Vacation Day 7: Walking the Golden Gate Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yep, Rich woke up yet again today!<\/p>\n

Today was the first real 60 degree weather since the second day of our trip.\u00a0 The sun was shining down and the wind wasn’t quite so bad today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The plan for today was to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.\u00a0 Well, at least halfway across.\u00a0 Everyone else was sleeping in again this morning.\u00a0 They are so lazy.\u00a0 Finally got showered and moving for the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Breakfast was the first order of business.\u00a0 We went around the corner to a little 50s diner place called Johnny Rockets.\u00a0 It was close and I didn’t have to hunt for anything.\u00a0 The waiters were yelling back and forth and yelling hello and good-bye to everyone.\u00a0 After getting enough to hold us for a while, we walked back to the hotel to get the car.<\/p>\n

The hotel clerk had told us to drive over the bridge to the Vista Point rest area.\u00a0 You could easily walk out on the bridge and get a good view for pictures. The directions from the hotel were pretty simple also.\u00a0 We jumped in the CR-V and went out on the streets of San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Getting to the 101 was pretty easy.\u00a0 We drove through the Marina district and by Fort Mason that stood guard over the marina area.\u00a0 The marina area was heavily damaged in the 1989.\u00a0 So many houses had to come down and it looks like they used the opportunity to rebuild in very eclectic styles. Jumping on the expressway, we got to the toll area.\u00a0 No toll to go north on the bridge though.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We arrived at the Vista Point parking area.\u00a0 I quickly grabbed a spot from someone pulling out.\u00a0 We put on our extra coats to bundle against the wind.\u00a0 The gauge in the car said it was 65.\u00a0 With cameras firmely around necks or wrists, we headed for the bridge.<\/p>\n

There are markers on the ground and posts to walk to the left side so that bikes could use the right side.\u00a0 People just don’t know how to walk though!\u00a0 The rule is up on the right and down on the left.\u00a0 You had to go around people or just plain stop for them.\u00a0 People will walk all over the place!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then add a few hundred bikes trying to go at top speed, it was a little messy out there. At one point, there were people walking in the bike lane.\u00a0 An elderly Asian man was in the way and a biker had to push him before he got run over.\u00a0 I was afraid we would be seeing an accident.<\/p>\n

Also, there are signs everywhere telling you not to jump from the bridge.\u00a0 Phone boxes with an automatic button to dial 911 appeared every so often.\u00a0 Rick had to take a picture of one of the signs.\u00a0 I guess the threat here is real.<\/p>\n

We stopped to take pictures as we walked out.\u00a0 There were all kinds of views and directions to capture things from. It was windy, but not that bad.\u00a0 We made it to the middle of the bridge in no time.\u00a0 You could touch the support as it dropped down to your level in the middle.\u00a0 We started to walk to the next support, but I had to ask the guys to turn back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The southbound walkway was closed today.\u00a0 On Sunday, the city\u00a0had a big fireworks display and had lights out on the bridge for the 75th anniversary of the opening.\u00a0 Luckily, we didn’t show up in town on Sunday.\u00a0 So the crews were still clearing away all of the equipment from the anniversary celebration.<\/p>\n

We turned to walk back to the parking area.\u00a0 Rich spotted a cargo ship coming into the bay and headed for the bridge.\u00a0 We tried to get back to the viewing area in time to watch the ship come through. We managed to get a good spot out on the end.\u00a0 I had to wait for some guy to remove his 2 and 3 year old kids from the brick wall that ran there. Not a smart thing to do since the cliff was right there.<\/p>\n

We waited and we waited and we waited some more.\u00a0 No container ship.\u00a0 After maybe 20 or 30 minutes, we gave up and went to the car.\u00a0 We decided to check out the Presidio, which sits on the hilltop above the Golden Gate Bridge.\u00a0 This is still an active military base, but there are a lot of public areas around it.\u00a0 Yep, that’s the Presidio just like the movie.<\/p>\n

We stopped at the first parking area and got out to look at some of the original bunkers and ammo stations that remained around the rim of the hill.\u00a0 We also got some really great shots looking back at the bridge.\u00a0 We walked to a couple of other view points and continued to take pictures.\u00a0 There was fog hanging over the Marin County side of the bay, which added to the effect.<\/p>\n

We got back in the car and drove down to Baker’s Beach.\u00a0 This was a wonderful view point for the bridge.\u00a0 I was lagging behind the guys, so I got to one point in the path that meant I had to jump down into loose sand.\u00a0 I yelled for the guys to come back and help me.<\/p>\n

But then\u00a0this very muscular, tan hand appeared in front of me.\u00a0 A\u00a0deep and very pleasant\u00a0voice asked, “Do you need some help?”\u00a0 I had to stop and think first.\u00a0 A tall, dark, and very handsome hero?\u00a0 I found my brains and said yes.\u00a0 He helped me down into the sand and then took off running on the beach.\u00a0 I assume this was his normal workout run.\u00a0 Wow, a great day on vacation!<\/p>\n

Back to my guys on the beach though.\u00a0 We got some more great pictures and the guys were trying to judge when a wave would reach them.\u00a0 The Pacific Ocean is very cold at this point on the coast, but plenty of people were playing in the water.<\/p>\n

In the parking lot, I ran into a guy with 6 dogs.\u00a0 He was taking them to the beach to run.\u00a0 One little friendly and overactive guy wanted attention.\u00a0 The man said that this guy runs the length of the beach several days and was very quick.\u00a0 He looked like a minature greyhound.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We got in the car again and drove up to the Legion of Honor.\u00a0 I parked next to this vintage Volvo that looked really cool.\u00a0 The owner smiled really big when I took a picture of it and I gave him a thumbs up for the cool car.\u00a0 It took a few minutes to figure out that the Legion of Honor was a full colonnaded monument with an inside building.\u00a0 So we started to walk up to the fountain in the center.<\/p>\n

I heard someone cry out and several older ladies started to run for the covered overhang around the door.\u00a0 I looked over and saw an older lady lying on the ground.\u00a0 My heart stopped for a minute.\u00a0 I ran over to try and help.\u00a0 Corinne was her name.\u00a0 She had tripped on the step and hit her head above the eyebrow on a column. My first thought was to keep her on the ground until help arrived.<\/p>\n

She appeared to be bleeding around her right eye.\u00a0 I examined her and found that she had a cut on her nose and her cheek from her sunglasses, which were not broken.\u00a0 The cuts\u00a0looked superficial, but they still bled a lot.\u00a0 The bump above her eye was swelling, but only oozing a little.\u00a0 She said that she didn’t feel any pain other than her head, but lying on the concrete wasn’t helping.\u00a0 She had her sense of humor.<\/p>\n

An attendant came outside to help.\u00a0 Rick was shading her from the sun.\u00a0 I took off my jacket to cover her knees since she was wearing a dress.\u00a0 The attendant gave us her jacket to make a pillow.\u00a0 I cleaned up her face with a Kleenex to remove some of the blood.\u00a0 She seemed to be okay over the new few minutes.<\/p>\n

The ladies around her kept yelling for her to get up and that she would miss the bus back to the facility.\u00a0 I tried to tell them she shouldn’t move yet.\u00a0 One lady told her if she didn’t get up, they were going to leave her behind.\u00a0 That kind of upset her.<\/p>\n

Another employee came out to help.\u00a0 Corinne said she was fine and would get checked at the facility where she lived when she returned.\u00a0 I had Rich and Rick get her to her feet to check if she was stable.\u00a0 She appeared to be in good shape.\u00a0 The attendants had a wheelchair to get her out to the bus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So the Legion of Honor houses a very nice art museum, which we didn’t know.\u00a0 We went inside and one of the attendants came after us.\u00a0 She wanted to arrange for our admissions in for helping with Corinne outside.\u00a0 Rich jumped at the chance.\u00a0 Rich in an art museum?\u00a0 Couldn’t see it voluntarily, but he accepted the tickets.\u00a0 Come to find out, it was $20 a piece to get in.\u00a0 He saved $60!\u00a0 So,\u00a0 Aunt Fran, Rich went to an art museum on this trip after all.<\/p>\n

We walked around and viewed the paintings.\u00a0 I recognized several and knew many of the artists.\u00a0 It was a very nice collection.\u00a0 We went downstairs to view the special exhibit, which was on Victorian art.\u00a0 It was beautiful.\u00a0 They included a section on the premier interior designers of the time with wallpaper samples and other goodies.\u00a0 William Morris was much more than an celebrity agent!\u00a0\u00a0It was really great.\u00a0 Rich liked the Venus done on a rough canvas.\u00a0 Figures, a naked lady.\u00a0 Oh well,\u00a0 I had tall, dark, and handsome earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

We came out and had then figured out how to get from the Pacific Ocean back to downtown San Francisco.\u00a0 Not too hard, except that our exit was closed for construction.\u00a0 They have that season here, too.\u00a0 We followed the detours and figured out how to get back on the same road we came out on.\u00a0 From there, it was easy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Did I mention that I got to drive on some of the rolling hills that the streets go over? It wasn’t quite like Bullet or the Streets of San Francisco TV show, but it was cool.\u00a0 But then again, this was my second time to drive San Francisco streets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Arriving at the hotel, the street in front had trucks unloading produce, buses trying to get through, and lots of cars.\u00a0 I did manage to get into the parking lot and find a spot.\u00a0 We trooped upstairs and promptly collapsed onto beds.<\/p>\n

We didn’t get lunch and it was around 3:00, so it called for an early dinner.\u00a0 We went out and down to The Embarcadero St. Turning left, we went down to the original Fisherman’s Wharf from the turn of the century.\u00a0 This was the wharf I remembered from 20 years ago.\u00a0 The smells are wonderful.\u00a0 You walk right by the sourdough bread factory and down to the outside vendors with all of their seafood specialities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I had chosen Alioto’s.\u00a0 I had read about its history and it was highly recommended.\u00a0 We got a table where we could see out of the windows and into the marina.\u00a0 I ordered the Fisherman’s basket with shrimp, scallops, pollack, and calamari.\u00a0 Rick got chicken penne with Alfredo sauce.\u00a0 Rich went for the spaghetti with clams in tomato sauce.\u00a0 We had warm sourdough bread on the table also.\u00a0 It was heavenly.\u00a0 I shared my calamari with the guys.\u00a0 Rick’s Alfredo sauce was so light and cheesy.\u00a0 How did they do that?\u00a0 The clams in Rich’s dish were fresh and looked great.<\/p>\n

After a great dinner, you need to walk that off.\u00a0 How better to do that than to do a walking tour of a Liberty ship.\u00a0 In the harbor, there is a Liberty ship that was actually used during WW II.\u00a0 A group of people had been working for several years to refurbish the ship and make her seaworthy.\u00a0 On Saturday, she had actually been on a cruise with contributors and others out of the bay and on to the ocean.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We walked from the deck to the cargo hold for an exhibit.\u00a0 I explained the places my father had been in WW II and some of the things he would have experienced with a ship like this.\u00a0 We made our way up to the bridge and the guys dropped down into the engine room to check it out.\u00a0 The old ship creaked and swayed, but she definitely seemed pretty seaworthy.\u00a0 I had trouble with a couple of stairways and waited for the guys to check out the top deck.<\/p>\n

Now going up, I had trouble with the gangway swaying so much.\u00a0 And then I could look down into the water.\u00a0 That is no sight for someone with a fear of heights!\u00a0 Then we had to come back down the gangway.\u00a0 It took a few minutes with the swaying, but I made it.<\/p>\n

Rich went back to the hotel while Rick went with me to buy a sweatshirt and a postcard.\u00a0 I found the sweatshirt I wanted, but not postcard.\u00a0 We went down the street and there were stands out for you to look through.\u00a0 I finally settled on one and went in to pay.\u00a0 Souvenir shopping over.<\/p>\n

Did I mention before about all of the languages that you hear on the street?\u00a0 I bet we have heard just about every language while we’ve been here.\u00a0 I’ve heard German from a lot of people.\u00a0 Surprisingly, there have been maybe 3 or 4 instances of Russian.\u00a0 Definitely, there are a lot of Chinese and Japanese tourists.\u00a0 The French have been pretty prevalent also.\u00a0 It’s definitely an international city.<\/p>\n

Addendum:<\/p>\n

We weren’t done for the night apparently.\u00a0 After I completed this blog, we decided to go out one more time.\u00a0 Rich was hungry, so we went by the vendors on Fisherman’s Wharf.\u00a0 He got another round of calamari.\u00a0 He claims this will be the last fresh ones he’ll be able to get for a while.\u00a0 That’s probably true.<\/p>\n

We then walked down to Pier 39 again.\u00a0 Everything was closing up, but there were still lots of people hanging out.\u00a0 The Wipeout Bar has an open fire pit on their deck and a lot of people were sitting around it to stay warm.\u00a0 I assume there are beers to go with that.<\/p>\n

Rich claimed that Ramya never brought him back a Ganesh statue from India.\u00a0 I didn’t want to hear about it again, so I went into Enlightenment and bought him one for Christmas.\u00a0 Maybe I’ll even put Ramya’s name on it.<\/p>\n

Rich and I stopped by Trish’s Mini Doughnuts.\u00a0 These things are awesome and warm.\u00a0 Rick had to have ice cream, even though it was chilly.\u00a0 We then walked over to watch the sea lions.\u00a0 Three of young guys were playing the equivalent of king of the hill.\u00a0 They were pushing each other off the dock.\u00a0 Trouble was, there were sleeping lions on that dock as well.\u00a0 Every one in a while, someone would tell them to quit.\u00a0 Finally, someone’s mom showed up and they played like they were asleep until Mom left.\u00a0 We left when the cold got to us.\u00a0 So it was time to go back to the hotel for the evening.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow:\u00a0 Yosemite.<\/p>\n

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Rick and Rich walking out on the Golden Gate Bridge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This is me stopping on my bridge walk for a picture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This is tall, dark, and handsome who helped me at Baker's Beach. He apparently runs on the beach.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The guys are heading out to Fisherman's Wharf for dinner. This is the original wharf, which is not Pier 39.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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This is me doing yet another Rose pose, but in front of my new seafood favorite, Alioto's.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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While waiting for the guys, I took this nice picture of the skyline from the ship.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Yep, Rich woke up yet again today! Today was the first real 60 degree weather since the second day of our trip.\u00a0 The sun was shining down and the wind wasn’t quite so bad today.\u00a0 The plan for today was to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.\u00a0 Well, at least halfway across.\u00a0 Everyone else was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,13,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}