San Francisco Explorers

Enjoying Some City Time

On Saturday we decided to opt for a little city exploration. Both Arch and I have been to San Francisco a few times but Nye does not really remember his first trip to CA at all. With the city so close by we decided to sleep in and enjoy our morning close to home. The drive to the city took us around an hour. (Beautiful country side the whole way on Rt 280.) As "first timers" we decided to explore the area around Fisherman's Warf. While a bit more touristy than our usual fair we still had a blast! We opted for the free parking at Fort Mason and beautiful walk with views of the Golden Gate bridge and the old Palace of Fine Arts buildings.

After exploring the park and checking out the very cool wildflowers we decide to enjoy the beach. Now I have to say these Californians are far more hail and hearty than us New Yorkers. Despite the frigid waters there were quite a few folks who were swimming. The only sensible people we saw were wearing wet suites. Hmmmmm . . .

Nye was quite inspired by his first glimpses of Alcatraz and decided to pay homage by creating an "Abstract Alcatraz" (his words not mine!) in sand on the beach. Perhaps Scooby Doo had something to do with this! With Archil's assistance the two got to work digging in the cold wet sand while I decided, sensibly, to do a little bird watching. Ironically this was rewarded by our first glimpses of a harbor seal. Sorry no pictures! A gray spotted seal on gray blue water is less than thrilling as a photo but really cool to look through binoculars. It seemed to me that he/she was checking out all the activity along shore with beautiful big limpid eyes.

Off we went to explore the rest of the city enjoying lunch, snacks, shopping and the like. One of our favorite stops was the Musee Mechanique, a total tourist trap but fun none-the-less. The Musee houses some truely wonderful coin operatated nickelodian style contraptions. Drop in an quarter and "re-live the 1906 earthquack in stereovision", "test your strength", and "Kiss-o-Meter where you measure the thrill of your kisses." Kitchy, campy, and cute. We were all very enthralled by the delightful turn of the century bowling machines and baseball games.

We wrapped up a sunny day in SF with a trip down to Pier 39 and enjoyed the sunning Sea Lions. Having never seen them before it was a real treat for me. A couple of young males were putting on a show in the water barking and splashing but most of the Sea Lions seemed very content to just sit back and enjoy the warm dry docks! Can't really blame them for that.


I'm sure we'll be back to explore other facets of the city. Arch and I both have favorites areas we're eager to explore. But for a quick trip and a taste it was really a treat!

Love,

Sara, Archil & Nye



I've included a little movie with a few additional pix.