Mark & Connie's San Francisco Vacation 2012

Day 3 - October 12, Bums, Nob Hill & Telegraph Hill

Another vacation disappointment
We started the day late because we had tickets for the "San Francisco City Tour" bus tours. It was a two day pass that allowed us to "hop on" and "hop off" any of there busses. So we were planning to catch the bus just down from the hotel. It runs over to Sausalito, but it didn't stop at the hotel until 10AM - later than we liked but it would allow us to ride the bus from the hotel all day and avoid parking.

So we wait on the corner until 10:25 when the bus finally passes us by and stops on the corner a block down the street. We double check the map we have of their stops. We were definitely in the right place according to the map. Another little issue was that the bus was totally open. Most of their busses are double decker with the top open. This was a single deck bus that was totally open. We would have been going across the Golden Gate bridge at 60mph and an air temp of about 58F. What are they thinking?

So we bagged the whole bus thing (two day pass worth $100) and went back to the car, drove to Haight Ashbury & the Golden Gate Park, then downtown and paid $36 to park. I love this town. HA!

	Connie wanted to go to Haight Ashbury. I told her I didn't want anyone to know I went there. She was impressed with the bums (you can call them homeless people, they look like bums to me). There were some shaggy looking people there. The tour books say that this is like going back to 1960. I don't think so at. I'm not admirer of the hippies, but with due respect to the hippies there is a difference between them and 21st century bums.
Dutch wind mill in Golden Gate Park	Golden Gate Park After getting a couple of photos at the corner of Haight and Ashbury, we drove into the Golden Gate park. This park is incredible. Very large and very scenic. We drove around in there for an hour or so and made a couple of stops. If you were a nature person and liked hiking around in the woods you could easily spend all day there.
	China Town We parked on the top of Nob Hill and rode the cable car down to the bottom. Then we rode back up to China Town and walked around China Town and ate lunch. The meal was mediocre. Connie bought some scarves for the girls and we headed back up the hill on the trolley and then walked down Powell street to get to the Union Square. And when I say down, I mean down. This street is very steep going down. We figured we'd walk down and ride the cable car back up. The only problem was that about 2000 other people had the same idea. When we got ready to ride up, the cable cars were full. So we figure we'll start walking up and catch one on up the hill that isn't so full. It was a long hike up that very steep hill. We never see a cable car with space available.

Telegraph Hill

Telegraph Hill isn't too far from Nob Hill, about nine blocks. The only problem is the last two blocks are almost straight up. When we got to the steps on Kearny Street, I didn't think Connie would even try it. She not only tried it, she made it and then kept going on up the steps on Telegraph Hill up to Coit Tower. It was quite a climb.

On the top of Telegraph Hill is Coit Tower. You ride an elevator to the top and have a tremendous view of the city and bay. Is the view worth the climb? Well just know this; There is auto parking on the top of the hill in front of the tower. We could have drove. We actually joked as we were walking up the hill... "There will probably be free parking at the top." "The elevator will probably be out of commission." Well there was parking - not free but cheap and the elevator wasn't out of commission.