San Francisco

For one week we lived in Morgan Hill, a far southern suburb of San Francisco, or maybe more accurately, San Jose. It is still an agricultural valley, but slipping fast into suburban mall-sprawl. I like to look for RV parks in these far suburbs so we are close enough to visit the city but far enough to be surrounded by agricultural or natural areas. There often seems to be an outlet mall nearby, as there is nearby in Gilroy. I think outlet malls are now being built in these far suburbs (like Aurora, IL) with the anticipation that they will soon be surrounded by residential areas. There is one in Vacaville too, where we are living this week, northeast of San Francisco, almost to Sacramento. I don't need to post a picture of an outlet mall, you know what those look like.

I should share that over 30 years ago I lived in Berkeley for a couple of years, while being a dancer (and a produce clerk and housecleaner). During that time I had a boyfriend with a motorcycle and we traveled around the area a bit: Yosemite, Napa, Marin, Halfmoon Bay. The whole area has change dramatically in many ways. The dot.com era and the post-dot.com technology boom have transformed the area south of SF into the Silicon Valley of course. (Both the Apple and Google campuses are here.) And all the little towns around SF are now suburbs. So as I'm touring the area I can't help but compare it to "how it used to be." Enough said.

From Morgan Hill we traveled to the coast and to the Big Basin Redwoods (see previous post). We also took a day to visit San Francisco. I know, a day is too short to do San Francisco justice, but I'm just not wild about cities, even one as beautiful as SF. But our one day was so lovely; we even had sun for a good part of it.

We drove up Rt. 1 to get there, passing by lots of cliffy beaches and less agriculture than I expected.

Once in SF we drove through the city and across the Golden Gate Bridge, stopping on the north side to look back.

Spent a little time in Sausalito.

Back across the bridge to the Presidio and Crissy Beach so Kona could have a swim. Great view of the bridge.

Dinner at Scomas, right out on Fishermans' Wharf. If you are there for lunch you can watch the fishing boats come in and out. They have their own fish processing room right across these dock with big windows so you can also watch them take in and process the fish (which we didn't see either because we were there for supper). Rick had their famous clam chowder and scallops. I had fresh dungeness crab cakes and lamb. The meal was big enough to bring half home for lunch another day.

Fisherman's wharf is a noisy, touristy place with endless T-shirt stores and more italian seafood establishments than you can shake a fish at. We finished the long day with a loop on the Embarcadero and around the eastern side of the city and south, back home to Morgan Hill.