San Francisco beyond the obvious

Story by Christine Tibbetts

  tibbetts1@bellsouth.net

    Famous place, San Francisco is, filled with spectacular experiences. Pleasure for me on a three-day discovery jaunt to write a story was this: finding delights beyond the obvious.

    Why rehash the well-known wonderful?  I like sharing notions not too quirky, but reasonable add-ons to the obvious destinations within a place.

    The Magic Bus fit my plan. Exceeded it actually. Ride it when you go to this chilly, hilly California city.

Experience San Francisco on a psychedelic painted bus staffed with professional actors. It’s history told well. Suitable for all ages.

Ninety minutes of rolling theater, flashback film footage, music, aural histories, 3-D imagery and real-time glimpses of parts of the city. Some scents familiar in the ‘60s wafting through too.

Peek at City Lights Bookstore, Chinatown and Haight-Ashbury. Golden Gate Park and Union Square. Summer of Love highlights.

    Sixteen projectors and a fine sound system show footage of the ‘60s as the bus rolls, well crafted like a public television documentary and created with the artistry of Antenna Theater of Sausalito.

    Every so often the bus stopped, the curtains rose and I was looking at the place the historic film had just shown.

    How on earth the driver controls that in San Francisco traffic, I can’t determine, but it was startling, and connecting. Whole new approach to living history.

     Thoughtful, reflective experience for me this was, a university student in the Summer of Love, with tickets to Woodstock. Didn’t go which pleased my parents immensely.

    Very, very glad I did go on the Magic Bus in 2011.

    Icons in San Francisco, I discovered, can be seen in new ways.  Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge for instance.

    Underneath, bending backwards at the waist to look up at the bridge’s bottom was interesting. I bundled up with woolen hat, long neck scarf wrapped around four times and a zipped-up waterproof coat that had protected me in India monsoons to cruise San Francisco Bay on the Red and White Fleet.

    This was May and this city is cold. I’d been told that by visitors in the know but it’s still hard to fathom shivering in the summer. Never leave a sweater at home when you pack for this holiday.

    The Red and White is a double decker with a third open-top level to see the Bay, and feel the big breezes.

    Up to 14 times a day the boat sails and I loved the perspective looking back to the city skyline and out toward the Golden Gate Bridge that’s part of every San Francisco movie, photo story or graphic design.

    I chose a sunset cruise because this is a romantic city. All the schedules I think sail around Angel Island State Park, near Sausalito and toward Alcatraz, and they’ve been doing so since 1892.

    Different boats then for this family-owned business but apparently the same cheerful relatives; boat crew seemed to like the views as much as I did, and wanted to share stories.

    Not speeches, just a little loudspeaker commentary and then crew accessible for passengers who wanted to chat.

Alcatraz is daunting, more so I guess on a trip that stops there for tours. I just gazed from my Red and White Fleet boat and imagined the tremors of arriving prisoners.

That started in1862 and lasted 100 years. I wondered too about the tremors of prison staff and their families because they lived on Alcatraz Island.

Mean? Compassionate? Believers in remorse and reform? I need to find some good books about the people living just yards from what was called one of the harshest maximum-security prisons in America.

My boat deckhand heard my musings and told me about a recent reunion of former prisoners and guards, dining together at Alcatraz. Americans can’t compromise in Congress today, but that dinner conversation sounded encouraging to me.

Alcatraz closed as a prison in 1963 but the agonies of people in this place and on this land didn’t end. Native Americans lived here, calling the land Rock Rainbow and a treaty signed in 1868 said unused land formerly occupied by them would return to them.

In they moved in 1969, uniting tribes for 19 months, and out they went in 1972—expelled again.

Today it’s officially a National Park Service National Recreation Area.

Much to ponder on this visit, a good balance for me since I travel to blend sheer pleasure with thoughtful insight.  Kind of like daily life, but in exciting new places.

San Francisco has fun addresses.  I met my boat at Pier 43 ½. That’s in Fisherman’s Wharf, easy to reach on the fabled cable cars.

Sea lions prefer Pier 39, sunning and barking on the docks, and shoppers and revelers like this pier too because it’s brimming with stores, restaurants, watering holes and boardwalks with benches, put together like a turn-of-the-century fishing village but upscale and trendy.

I’m better with history than shopping so Hyde Street Pier called more to me. This is a Maritime National Historical Park with ships that mattered in San Francisco’s growth. It’s three blocks west of Fisherman’s Wharf.

    Seekers of gold sailed in on almost anything and their abandoned vessels are the support system on which the financial district was built.

Climb aboard some vessels of grander stature, or at least take a look and think about the ways this harbor has mattered to people.

The Alma is a schooner, the last flat-bottomed scow still afloat. She used to carry hay, grain and fertilizer.

Balclutha is an 1800s square-rigger hauling California wheat to Europe and the Thayer used to take Douglas fir trees to Puget Sound ports for wood to build California cities.

Ferries and towing ships from the early1900s are on display at Hyde Street Pier too. I could make a day of it, or just take a look, either way connecting with San Francisco early workers at least a little bit.   

For me this gave Fisherman’s Wharf a depth beyond the fun of watching people and relishing clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls.

 I wanted to figure out an angle for sleeping. Plenty of grand hotels with familiar names and brands in San Francisco in all sorts of locations but I chose The Hotel Rex.

Not too far from Union Square which is a downtown central point, a block from the cable and street car lines and different. Joie de Vivre is its hotel brand connection.

This is a small hotel, 94 rooms, 1930s mood. Grand contrast to the Summer of Love. I appreciated the hand-painted lampshades, books in the library where a glass of wine was free every late afternoon and the baguette cooked in the morning to put in the bicycle basket.

Really. Two bikes in the lobby meant to borrow. This is San Francisco so the baguette is sourdough.

Hanging on the cable, feet on the ledge because all the seats are filled is my favorite way to ride the cable cars. No let down as an experience despite a lifetime of hype.

    These are fun, surely romantic solo or coupled. They are lovely too, with gleaming wood and burnished brass.

 $5.00 a ride. Since they are fun and convenient, I recommend a one-day pass for $13 or three days for $20.

All the rides are fun but here’s the difference between a San Francisco streetcar and a cable car: streetcar has a trolley pole connected to an overhead wire and a cable car runs on rails with an open slot between them and no wires.

Streetcars are as much fun to watch for as people. They’re international—models from Belgium, England, Germany, Japan, Portugal, Russia and Australia. Fun to spot but I wished I’d known that before many had rolled past me.

I recommend hopping off at Mason and Washington streets when you ride to Fisherman’s Wharf and visit the free Cable Car Museum.  No lines to wait in the day I did that so I guess it’s not on many bucket lists.

    I loved it. Watch the gears and pulleys actually at work, running the system because this is the powerhouse.  See exhibits that explain how this transportation works.

    Black and white photos show the people and the cars in their early days. First car ran in1873 and here I was hopping on and off in 2011.

    Plus this little-known museum is in (or on?) Nob Hill which is famous. Hilly San Francisco confuses visitors and residents since they count differently.

    Some say 42 hills are here and others say 74 or any number in between. Nob Hill, however, is secure as one of the seven on which the city was originally built. 

    No matter the number, add comfy shoes to your brave-the-possible-cold weather gear.