Day Two--We Take San Francisco by Storm

Forewarning:  Day Two's post may end up being just as long as Day One's.  If you're not interested, skip it.  If you are, grab yourself a cookie and some hot chocolate and let's get started.

Since we had originally intended to see a bit more of San Francisco the night before but were unable to because of our late train, we were determined to make the most of our only full day in SF for the sake of our Great West Coast Extravaganza.  We woke up at about 7 and hit the ground running.  Gee and Kat, as I mentioned in Day One's post, live in a basement studio apartment.  The main room is of a pretty decent size, there's a smallish walk/in closet and a very tiny and cold bathroom, and a sort of entryway/kitchen.  However, the work they've done on the place makes it look much nicer than any basement studio apartment usually looks.  They've redone the floors, the walls, and all sorts of things to make it more comfortable before they moved in.  All in all, it was a great place to stay, and they were unfailingly generous hosts who insisted on sharing whatever they had.  I hope that I can do half as well when I have people staying at my place some day.

This is pretty much the sum total of Gee and Kat's apartment.

Kat had to head off to work at the lab that morning.  She's getting her doctorate and is studying the affects of aluminum on aging, which means getting to work with some very odd worms, which actually sounded quite fascinating when she explained it, but her awesome English accent probably helped.  Kat is, by the way, incredibly awesome.  I was a little nervous to meet her, since meeting the girlfriend of a very old friend (and one time boyfriend) and then immediately spending several days in her company could be quite awkward.  But instead it was awesome.  I heartily approve of her and think Gee is lucky to have her.  She made our trip that much better.  So that morning she headed off to work, and Gee, Allie, and I climbed into the car and headed straight for the Golden Gate Bridge.

This is only beginning of the hundreds cheesy smile pictures you're going to see.

 The Golden Gate Bridge is going on my list of landmarks and monuments I didn't at all expect to impressed with but was.  I'd seen a million pictures of the big red bridge, a million pictures better than any I was likely to take, pictures taken in sunset and fog and moonlight and a million other, cooler situation than our morning walk was likely to include.  What was there to see?  First, that sucker is huge.  I mean huge.  And the sheer size and redness of it is rather impressive.  Then there's the matter of the view.  We were lucky enough to be there on a beautiful day and the water was stunning.  There was even a sailboat race passing under the bridge, dotting the water with white sails.  The city skyline was a little misty and a little silhouetted and gave me my first real sense of the city. We walked along the bridge, talking, joking and looking our fill, until we were past halfway.  For several minutes now, Allie had been quietly suggesting that it was time to head back to the car if we didn't want our meter to expire.  Gee had brushed her concern aside with typical Gee energy and enthusiasm and confidence.  Since it was his car, we let him be the judge of when to go back.  Which is why, partway through our walk back along the bridge, he determined we did not actually have enough time.  Handing me his jacket, he set off at a run to get to the car.  Allie and I met up with him there after we finished the walk.

Periodically along the bridge there would be these crisis hotline phones, urging people not to jump and telling them there was still hope.  Gee said he'd actually seen someone jump once when he was stuck in traffic.  Crazy.

After the bridge, we set off for the beach.  We had meant to go to an aquarium, but it didn't work out as well as we thought, so we were left with some free time until lunch, and the beach seemed like the best option.  So we walked along Ocean Beach (a very original name, eh?).  The sand was hot, and the water was cold.  I grew up no where near the ocean, and have spent very little time on it over the years.  So just being there was exciting for me, though Allie and Gee found my enthusiasm amusing.  The ocean's just so big, and so very full, and so very much in motion, and so very awesome.

We walked for a long ways, carrying our shoes, and Allie lead us in the direction of some very promising-looking rocks.  When we got there, we found a cave where some climbers were just packing up their crash pad after a very sandy and slightly damp bouldering session. After clambering about in the cave for a while, we crawled out through a different, much smaller opening, and walked the long sandy walk back to the car.  I enjoyed the sand between my toes, the ocean, the breeze, the sun, and I especially enjoyed getting to be on friendly terms with Gee again.  Gee and I go way back, nearly five years, and we were once as close as close can be.  But then he moved to San Francisco, and I've only seen him once in the past four years.  We talk on the phone occasionally, but we seem to have less and less to talk about.  I was worried that staying with him and his girlfriend might be a tinsy bit awkward.  But it turns out that when put back in the same place we were still very much friends.  We rattled on like we hadn't in years.  Poor Allie, she had to hang out for days with two old friends who spent a lot of time alternating between catching up and reminiscing.

It's Gee!  In a cave!

We had a 2:50 ferry to Alcatraz, so we returned to Gee's place to rustle up some lunch and meet up with Kat.  Gee doesn't like to wait for things, and tends to wait until the last minute to eliminate any down or dead time.  That's how we found ourselves abandoning our bus trip part way through to take a taxi the last few blocks to the pier.  We were still cutting it awfully close, and Gee almost abandoned the taxi in traffic to run the last few blocks to pick up our tickets.  But once again, we made it just in time.  We got our tickets, read the placards about famous prisoners while we waited in line, and hopped aboard the ferry.  I have to admit that once again, I was skeptical about Alcatraz.  Was this going to be worth the $26 a piece we were paying?

Once again, I was impressed.  Alcatraz has been and is many things.  It has been a military fort, a military prison during the civil war times, a prison for America's most dangerous criminals, the idyllic home for a few generations of guards' families, "Indian Island," an exotic garden, and a bird sanctuary.  And all of it was interesting.  We watched a film about the island's stint as Indian Island and saw marks of the occupation, such as the word "FREE" being painted into the stripes of this flag.  We listened to the audio tour (that explains all the geeky headphones we're wearing), and wandered over all the parts of Alcatraz that are still safe.  The tour starts with the same hike up the hill the prisoners took, only without the shackles and cuffs, and then takes visitors into the shower room to begin the tour. 

The tour was both interesting and instructive.  The prison was surprisingly small.  There were only about 200-300 prisoners at a time, all the of them tortured by beautiful views of the city they were walled way from by bars and water.  We learned about notable escape attempts, famous prisoners, what life was like for both guards and prisoners, and why the prison was eventually closed.

After touring the prison, we also toured the gardens planted by the wives of the guards and maintained now by volunteers.  We saw the ruins of the warden's house, the social hall, and the old fort.  And there were thousands of birds. It was nesting season and many areas were roped off so that we didn't disturb the seagulls, cormorants, egrets, and others that we saw.  Alcatraz was actually named after the birds observed there, and now they are once again the island's primary inhabitants.  The prison was fascinating and horrifying, the gardens were beautiful, the birds amazing, the view of the city incredible.

A small sampling of the gazillions of cormorants we saw.

After the ferry ride back to the city, we walked around a long time through Pier 39 and other touristy places looking for food we wanted.  We ate at a small place called Lou's Blues which served southern seafood.  At this point I was discovering that San Francisco can be a dang cold place.  I had been told that San Francisco could be cold, but I was usually told that by Californians, whose opinions on hot and cold I usually hold to be invalid.  Let me assure all fellow skeptics, San Francisco can be COLD and WINDY, and I say this as an Idahoan who knows something of cold and wind.  We got to experience the cold and the wind in full that night as we tried to get back to Kat and Gee's place.  We walked a few blocks to our bus stop, waited for our bus, got off at our transfer point, walked a few more blocks in the cold and dark, and settled down to wait.  The next bus wasn't supposed to come for 20 minutes.  Allie and I huddled in the bus shelter, Kat braved the cold, and Gee paced and fumed.  Maybe you've noticed he doesn't like down time.  Which is why when the bus finally came, 10 minutes late, and it didn't stop because it had broken down at the stop before and was now on the way to the garage.  So we waited another 20 minutes.  By this point Gee was about ready to implode with pent up energy, and Allie and I were ready to hibernate for the winter.  Kat of course was cold, but had more class than the rest of us put together.

Alcatraz is for the birds. This is the remains of the warden's house.

When we finally got home, we crashed.  We felt like we had managed a great deal for one day.  We'd seen the bridge, the bay, the city, the ocean and the beach, Alcatraz, the pier, and the bus system.  I'd managed to get sunburned (surprise surprise), and we'd had a great time with friends old and new.

The view from Alcatraz.  Can you imagine how torturous that would be?  The inmates described being able to sometimes hear the sounds of the city.