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8th Oct 2005
USAF on show and the Golden Gates
Saturday 8th October, 2005
This morning’s pack-up was a hurried one. We were up, out and off all in about 25 minutes … once again along to the bookstore, its warmth, WiFi and French toast.
We hit the airport at about 10.30 and checked in automatically, which was a bit of an adventure as we hadn’t done full automation before, but it worked well enough. The flight was uneventful, with relaxed gum-chewing stewardesses plying soft drinks … or alcohol at a cost.
The coast near Seattle was shrouded in clouds but we got a fair overview of the city as we drew away … and of the various islands along Puget Sound. It’s a beautiful day. Not what was forecast at all; we’ve been really lucky.
We had a quarter of an hour to wait for the car to be prepared and during that time Anne phoned Claire on the new mobile.
We got onto the Highway immediately and took signs for San Fran … and then settled on ‘Golden Gate Bridge’; it’s the slightly longer way round but decided we’d do it. The weather is FANTASTIC. Surprisingly cold air, clear blue skies and sunny.
By some good or bad fortune we ended up going right smack through the middle of San Francisco … on a Saturday afternoon … on a day when what seemed like the whole nation was out basking in the reflected glory of the American Navy. With parts of the fleet alongside and the air force doing their stuff noisily and it has to be said spectacularly overhead, thousands and thousands of San Franciscans wandered about on the side walks in carnival proportions.
The streets, while not quite gridlocked, moved really slowly and certainly didn’t benefit from having the Moores navigating their way through the proceedings, switching through four lanes of traffic at short notice (and back on occasion) and slowing further the already slow procession of cars by dangling out of the window with a camera. Lots of tooting.
We drove past Piers 1 to 20 something along the length of the town. Persil-white Naval uniforms strolled down the street and formations of F15s thundered over the bay, spiralling vertically to tens of thousands of feet high and then plummeting back down to bay level over the bridges. All the rooftops had people on them and all the windows were lined along miles of the street.
We persevered. It must have taken an hour to get through and then we broke a little free and undertook another spectacular cross traffic manoeuvre which really did attract some attention as we cut from the outside lane to get to the viewing pull-off for the Golden Gate bridge.
The bridge is a magnificent art deco structure, with attendant kiosks and booths in the same style. Loads of people; mainly oriental but with a few Russians as well. I spoke with a Russian couple who moved the SF some years ago and had come out on a bus tour. They described their disappointment in faltering and heavily accented English with the fact that the tour had been totally booked out by Koreans and they were unable to talk or understand anything that was going on. They took our picture for us in front of the bridge.
Down below the main viewing platform was some very moderate interpretation but one whole panel was assigned to a 1932 picture by Ansel Adams of the Golden Gate before the bridge … sadly they had not sought to repeat the piece and simply made the point in a short caption that there was life before the bridge.
The bridge crossing was smooth and the traffic, by this time slightly faster. We pulled off once again to the other viewpoint which afforded a better view of the City and of Alcatraz. To look at it, you wonder why it was that people couldn’t simply swim off it ashore … it doesn’t look any further, perhaps less than somewhere like the Isle of May.
Gazing around the hill tops on this side, we could see various congregations of cars and photographers taking what turns out to be the classic view of the bridge … but how to get there was not immediately apparent. Tentative forays down the roads of Marin County and then an unmarked track up into the hills from the other side was our route, but from up there we could see the route back to the Highway and it turned out that an awkward left hander … almost a hairpin turn, across a couple of lanes of traffic would have got us there more directly.
Looking down at this classic view which reminds you of everything from Starsky and Hutch to Dirty Harry was just incredible. As the sun began to dip, the colours of the bridge deepened; it went beyond Golden to a deep firey red.
We left as the south end began to fade in intensity. After a minor hiccup we found the route over the Richmond Bridge to the east side of the bay. Richmond is the double decker one with the east-bound and west-bound traffic on different levels – perhaps the one that collapsed a bit in the last major earthquake?
Finding Berkeley was straight forward but it took another hour and a half to find suitable digs. It’s a busy weekend here and there are weddings, conferences and tourists to accommodate.
After a number of false starts, we checked into the last room at a travellodge and crossed the street to get supper at a small Italian restaurent which it has to be said was going like a fair. We got there slightly before 9, had great food but by 9.30 there was ourselves and another couple of tables … and that was it. America goes to bed early.
Back to Wifi and picture download.
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