Our last days in San Francisco, we packed a lot in. We started our penultimate day with a slow walk around the cable car museum. It's housed in the engine room of the motors that actually drive the cables out under the streets. It was quite impressive to see the ingenuity of the system that started up the trend across most of the major states & cities of the USA and world. The person responsible (Andrew Hallidie) for the San Francisco cable car system and actually the investor of the concept came from the UK. There's also detail about how the people of San Francisco battled to keep the cable cars against local government plans to replace them with buses. Thankfully the battle was won against politicians at the time - they are here to stay - they are in the City Charter and are now a national historic landmark. A victory for sentiment, character and legacy over bureaucrats, budgets and jobs-worths brought about by the people of San Francisco refusing to be told what goes in their city. It's the only city in the world where cable cars are still in use. There is clearly a lot of pride and affection for the little cars. Each one has a lot of history and their own individual characters. Most of the cars themselves have been in active service for around a hundred years or more. They're full of charm and really quite cute. The basic design from a screw wheel clamp to the grips of today have changed little in their principle design or operation. Looks like it takes some skill, judgement and plenty of strength to operate as well as nerves of steel when going up and down those hills! The museum also provided information around the 1906 earthquake. San Francisco was devastated - a fire broke out straight after which couldn't be contained as the water lines were out due to the earthquake. A single fire hydrant, on Church Street, was intact and enabled the locals to end the fire. Every year on 18th April it's painted gold to commemorate it's service to San Francisco - a local hero. The more we found out about San Francisco and it's residents, the more we were warmed and charmed by it.
Next on our list was a visit to the world's most "crookedest" street otherwise known as Lombard Street, what might not be initially apparent to most is that the twisty bit is right at the top of a very, very big steep hill! The hills in Sheffield feel pretty tame compared to the hills in San Francisco. We found ourselves trudging up and down some massive hills especially in order to see Lombard. We slowly made our way to the top of what felt like a 45 degree angle for most the way. They say the best way to appreciate it is to watch cars slowly navigate their way down it and so we did, then finishing with a tourist necessity of taking the obligatory photos of the road while gurning at the the camera and taking our turn in the queue of other tourists for the best shot. We then had an easy downhill walk to Fisherman's Wharf and a sunny relaxing walk down the sea front for a final visit to the sea lions at Pier 39. Of course, it was the usual antics of watching them push eachother off the pier, wildly barking and lounging out. They seemed especially giddy that day - the sun must have given them extra energy. A few actually broke loose from the pack to cool off in the water which provided some additional entertainment.
Following a wave goodbye we caught one of the historic trams down to Market Street to head back to Union Square. Even the trams (streetcars) are really old - they source old trams decommissioned from other cities for restoration in their originating city's colours and general use. So we saw trams from all over the states in this one city.
Later we dined out at one of the Lori's Diners where we had a seat next to some old 60s classic car inside the restaurant, and ate onion rings off of a metal airplane very kitsch! The food was ok, the decor so-so a mix of 50/60's styled diner - very Americano although it felt a waste of a car (looked like an old style Cadillac (Christine) - was actually a Ford).
The last day we had a final pass left in our city pass books, so off we went again taking a bus, this time one of the electric types that has a tram type cable connector to the wires above the roads. Other than than it felt very much like any other bus apart from being slightly noisier (maybe the air-con?). We rode to our destination, the Palace of Fine Arts that houses the Exploratarium. This being a remnant of the 1919 exposition where literary hundreds of palaces where erected to house exhibits and artefacts from all around the world. One even housed a Ford production plant that built cars and sold them to visitors. Lights, mechanics, electrics and the first trans-Atlantic phone call took place during the event! A real show of some magnitude, the palace itself shows what remains of that original splendour and artistry in its' architecture and surrounding gardens and water features. It's pretty impressive even though you later learn that most of it was re-casted and rebuilt during the 60s to the original design as the original was built to last just for 1 year!
After having a leisurely stroll around the grounds and the imposing dome and surrounding water features we headed inside. The Exploratarium awaited us, this is a hands on science museum with exhibits demonstrating various scientific knowledge and principles in fun ways. To be honest it seemed a bit more kid orientated, but it didn't stop us doing things like making smoke rings, blowing giant bubbles, and messing about with ball bearings, building arches and doing all the other stuff. An hour or so later I had to leave as Kelly was scienced out and to be honest I'd had my hands on pretty much 90% of every exhibit! Would be a great place to take a kid, even big kids like me! We bought a souvenir pen that had a ball bearing maze down it that served to entertain me for the bus ride back to the hostel, then it was a case of having a bit of dinner and a small wait for our taxi. We had an hour to write some blog entries and to upload some of the hundreds of pictures we had taken and vetted for Off Exploring or Facebook (up to Venice Beach). Next stop would be Santa Barbara.
We actually both could have stayed longer in San Francisco and would recommend it as a great place to visit. Mike and Kelly