We left our hearts in San Francisco

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Most of us have been to San Francisco. For the few of you who have not, this city is a gem. Our stay in California would not be complete without revisiting the sights on the “City by the Bay”. San Francisco is a unique destination that has its own qualities and charm. It is known for its cool summers, coastal fog, and built on seven steep rolling hills. It was the center of liberal politics, the seat of the Beat Generation, the heart of the Hippies counterculture centered at Haight-Ashbury, and heralded the Gay Rights movement. Its landmarks include the famously crooked Lombard Street, the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars carrying riders up steep inclines, Victorian houses, Chinatown, Alcatraz Island (former prison), Fisherman’s Wharf, the Embarcadero, and Pier 39 with its shops and restaurants. So there is plenty for tourists to see, for the songwriters to write, and for the film producers to stage. Doesn’t everyone remember the famous car chase scene in “Bullitt”, the dizzying scenes on the Golden Gate Bridge from Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”, and the many settings on the “Streets of San Francisco” as a backdrop for movies (“Dirty Harry”) and television shows? Thousands of films have been staged in this picturesque city.

San Francisco (Spanish for "Saint Francis") was founded June 29, 1776 when a fort was established by the Spanish who named it for Saint Francis of Assisi. The location has been very strategic ever since, with the US forts, the Presidio, and as a port of embarkation for the Pacific in WWII.

With sourdough bread in hand (still famous in San Francisco), prospectors raced to this area during the Gold Rush of 1849.  With these fortune seekers streaming into the city, lawlessness became common and the Barbary Coast section of town (named by sailors after the North African area of pirates and slave traders) was a haven of criminals, gamblers, pirates, and vigilante justice.

The 1906 earthquake and subsequent fire destroyed three-quarters of the city, left half the residents homeless, and changed the history of the city so that before and after 1906 is still a common descriptor.

We visited many other coastal areas around San Francisco during our winter in Northern California. Monterey made famous by John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, is a likeable town on the Ocean. The John Steinbeck museum nearby memorializes his literature and life. This section of coast (and much larger from San Francisco to Santa Barbara) is the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Monterey Bay has thriving kelp forests which is why the sea lions hang out there. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is world-renowned and one of the main reasons people travel to Monterey. The scenic beauty is definitely another reason. The Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) goes to nearby Carmel-by-the-Sea, which is where Clint Eastwood was Mayor and which started as an artist mecca and still has nearly 100 art galleries to explore. The sunsets and beach are among the best. The PCH goes further south to the Big Sur unspoiled coastline with its jaw-dropping cliffs plummeting into the ocean. The natural beauty here inspired many famous writers and artists. Scenic vistas are a dime a dozen!

Pacific Grove next door to Monterey is one of the places where many of the dwindling numbers of Monarch butterflies winter before their migration back to the Rocky Mountains. It is a popular vacation get-away place less crowded than Monterey.

Silicon Valley was interesting to visit. Googleplex (the Google corporate headquarters) in Palo Alto was a vast complex with brightly-colored bicycles available for the employees to get around campus which had many fun statues. The lobby contains a piano and a projection of current live Google search queries (40,000 queries every second!) Facilities include free laundry rooms, two small swimming pools, multiple sand volleyball courts, and eighteen cafeterias with diverse menus. Interesting to walk around but they were not very welcoming to visitors.

The one-car garage which led to the founding of Hewlett Packard (and was considered to be “the birthplace of Silicon Valley”) is also in Palo Alto. It is now a private property but visible from the street.

Mountain View has a Computer History Museum which sounded dry but was actually fascinating. It educates visitors from the earliest Babbage difference engine (calculator from 1821), code-breaking computers of WWII, and everything up through the newest self-driving cars, which we saw driving around town.

In San Jose is the mysterious Winchester House (of Winchester gun fame.) It is a mansion haunted by Sarah Winchester herself among others. An unfinished farmhouse originally, it was added onto haphazardly to 160 rooms. It contains stairways that lead nowhere and hidden passageways in order to confuse the ghosts. Delightful.

We previously posted a Floating Homes blog from Sausalito. Our stay on a Floating Home was exceptional and we later learned that Otis Redding wrote “Dock of the Bay” while he stayed on a houseboat there in 1967. Sausalito itself is another artist-inspired and now wealthy community.

From there, we visited Muir Woods to walk among the redwood trees; Angel Island (“Ellis Island of the West”) for a hike with gorgeous views of San Francisco & Alcatraz; Tiburon peninsula (Robin William’s home and ferry port to Angel Island), Point Reyes National Seashore (elephant seals, elk, deer); and Marin Headlands for views of the city and of Golden Gate Bridge at increasing higher elevation.

In-between our jaunts to these wonderful destinations, we home-based inland in Sacramento. There we did house/pet sitting which was new for us. It enabled us to have the infrastructure that you all take for granted (WiFi, TV, furniture, kitchens, driveways, garages) and to enjoy pets temporarily with no permanent responsibility. There we enjoyed frequent walks or bike-rides along the American River Trail which goes along the river for 32 miles and bird watching along the Sacramento River portion of the Pacific Flyway. We also prepared and planned for our next adventure and when and to where we will set off again. So stayed tuned and until then Happy Trails.