Friday morning, we awoke and made our way to Vallejo ferry terminal, by way of a much more friendly taxi driver, one who knew the UK and had become quite attached to life there during his time attached to the United States Marine Corps. We were dropped at the terminal and boarded our ferry bound for San Francisco.
as we rounded a headland in San Francisco bay the first sight that came into view was Alcatraz Island, former American Civil War fort, Federal Penitentiary and now National Park. closely followed was this sight by another, the Golden Gate Bridge... wait is it or is it the Grey Foggy Bridge??? More on that later.
We arrived at the Port of San Francisco repeating the entrance to the city made by hundreds of thousands of people during the 1849 Gold Rush. Chris took the opportunity once again to prove to Hannah that he was not hiding in some dark corner of Wales avoiding her, he is in America...see!
By the way, Dad, it is the City and County of San Francisco, not Swansea... although they do both have bays named after them and the land on which they both stand rises up into steep hills away from the bay. One is however infrequently devastated by freak weather and natural disasters... San Francisco gets a bit foggy as well.
After checking into the hotel Kate thought that it had been a good five and a half minutes since our last good walk, we should go and explore. Maybe take a little stroll down to the Golden Gate Bridge by way of Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf, a distance of a mere 6 or so miles. Chris's ambulance promptly arrived and administered care after which we set off.
On our way through the Chinatown district, the largest such community in the United States, Chris took the opportunity to add a photograph to his police department photo collection...
John Law was none to happy about this and Chris was summarily arrested, tried and convicted for being a public menace, though with a face too pretty for prison, Alcatraz was selected for solitary confinement. We see in this photo the main cell block and lighthouse of Alcatraz Island, also the film set of Chris' favourite film The Rock. The lighthouse was where Nicholas Cage fought off his adversary with the help of Sean Connery to diffuse the last VX poison gas missile (up till this point targeting the San Francisco Bay area).
We are unsure as to which cell was Chris' but it was in this building that he formulated a plan which when put into effect, enabled him to be the first man to successfully escape Alcatraz alive, using nothing but a toothbrush and a packet of Sherbet Lemons. How he did it shall never be known as Kate chose to eat the plans... not for secrecy purposes, she was just hungry...
The Boy celebrates his return to the mainland with a handsome pose before his former prison.
Back in the real world we had made it down to the harbour, where we took those and many other Alcatraz pictures, looking back towards the city we spotted the most dominating structure of the San Francisco skyline, the Transamerica Pyramid, at the time of its completion in 1972 the bizarrely shaped 850ft tall structure was numbered among the five tallest buildings in the world.
We reached Pier 39 home to the Hard Rock, San Francisco, the Candy Baron Confectioners store and the famous Sea lions of San Francisco.
The pleasant decked area was bustling with people which helped us to forget how unbelievably cold it was, we had been reliably informed earlier in the day that at a balmy 13 degrees Celsius, San Francisco was currently the coldest place in the entire United States... that includes Alaska!!!
Kate was entranced by the Sea Lions, this year celebrating their 20th birthday as inhabitants of Pier 39. 'What a coincidence' thought Kate 'it's my birthday this year too' (?) who can blame her for loving them though, look at them...
probably really warm in there...
continuing our way down towards the bridge we concluded that the heavy fog which had hung over the bridge, covering its towers, was not going to shift, and chance of a decent photograph of it would have to wait until tomorrow. We retreated to the comfort of our Hotel, first venturing to Fort Mason which had a breakwater quay into the bay which we walked to the end of to get even more photographs of Alcatraz and some consolation photographs of the Golden Gate Bridge. you'll have to wait for them though... Kate has a plan for them?!?!
So you may have guessed by now that there wasn't really all that much to say about yesterday so we have doubled up on the blogs!! Saturday came and much to Chris' devastation Kate had a plan, to see the morning have breaky and head out for the day! Managed to get him out of the hotel by 10.15 oh yes! To Starbucks we headed...wow hang on, a queue out of the door....OK perfect opportunity to touch base with the parents! We had a proper breaky here a coffee, tea (of sorts!), bagel and croissant, impressed! No seats meant outside we had to sit, very nice heaters out there though, until some smokers decided to pollute our lungs and blow fumes over us...bastards!
It was off to touch base with A and F, Found it lush....and some very nice stuff there to will have to wait for tomorrow, not carrying it around all day! It was already warmer than yesterday by noon, and I was worrying that we had been too negative in our jumpers and trousers...not to be, as we walked towards the ferry building the temperature began to drop. It was at the ferry building we checked in for our Muir Woods tour. We departed with the other 4 departing from the city, we were to pick up 20 more across the Golden Gate bridge in Sausolito. Oh my god, the women in the party of four drove us mad, before we even reached the bridge she told her grumpy children that it was the Pacific Ocean on our right, no dear that is the bay...it is why you can still see land she then proceded to have a go at one of her children because he didn't really like the peach he had eaten 3/4 of and could his dad have the rest.
Anyway, just before we slit our wrists we made it to Muir woods, having come down in a rather steep and windy road; even Kate was feeling slightly green at the end. We set foot in (what we think is our last national park) Muir woods part of the Golden Gate parks.
Founded in 1908 when Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt declared the area a National Monument, Muir Woods was a project of conservation by an amature conservationist William Kent, who wished to preserve the Redwoods. It was named Muir Woods after Kent's hero John Muir the Naturalist and founder of Yosemite.
Muir woods contains the Coastal Redwoods or the Sequia Sempervirens.
The most famous of the redwoods is the Giant Sequoia or the Sequoiadendron, these however are found in the Sierra Nevada mountains or 2-3 hours inland, it is these that you can actually drive your car through! However the coastal redwoods can grow up to 13ft wide and are the tallest of the Redwoods growing up to 380ft (that currently being the tallest). It was quite amazing and equally weird to look up and not see the top of the tree!
In the Victorian era the coastal redwoods were harvested to build with, one tree built 8 houses....impressive!
Throughout the monument you are able to grasp the shear size of these trees, as you can see Chris found himself at home inside of one!
While Mongo shows of the peeling bark of a fallen tree, no you can't eat it!
Further into the monument we came across Cathedral grove it was here we saw some of the tallest trees.
A sign to the right of the above requested quiet whilst enjoying this area, however this didn't apparently apply to Children!!
It was very common to see the trees growing together in the way you see below, sprouting from the same root system. We discovered that although the roots reach just 10 feet down, they will reach up to 80ft away from the tree base and intertwine with other Redwood roots systems as a support structure.
It was quite weird, to see how the bark of the trees peels away, we had seen it early on a fallen tree but hadn't realised that it happens on those still growing! As this arty picture a Mongo special, shows!!!
The Redwoods may often be found in family circles, this may be to do with the root system we mentioned earlier but we are not sure; but it was fascinating to see as the circles were so perfect, nature can never cease to amaze us.
We left the relative warmth of the Muir Woods and reascended the winding road to reach Muir Lookout. A cold, windswept but nevertheless spectacular vista looking out over the Pacific Ocean...
Don't be fooled by the sunshine, it was still freaking cold!
See the fog as well to the right hand side of the frame...
positioned on top of the hill were a series of bunkers used by the U.S. Military at the beginning of World War 2 (1942!) after the attack on Pearl Harbour. Reeling from the attacks which had devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet the great fear was that the Japanese Empire would capitalise on their victory with a full scale invasion, across the Pacific, of the mainland United States. Due to America's lack of combat readiness it was believed that any such invasion would reach Chicago before it could be stopped. As a result watch posts and artillery batteries were built along areas such as the Californian coastline, San Francisco Bay in particular due to its deep harbour ports in Oakland and San Francisco. from up here you could really get an impression of just how clearly lookouts would have been able to see any incoming forces.
We then returned to Sausolito and had time to have a quick ice-cream (yes it was freezing but hey it was there)... it was sooo lush mun! We caught the ferry back to the port of San Francisco and from there we headed to our dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe on Pier 39...
Some Fajitas and a 10oz Angus burger later (guess who had which) we began the 50 minute walk back to the hotel.
Oh quick aside note... in Muir Woods there were a series of loop walks linked by little bridges, walk 1 to the first bridge, walk 2 the second etc. each walk was estimated to take an hour per mile??? 1mph!!! seriously how unfit are these Californians??? come on their Governor is Arnold Schwartzenegger, a man who was made famous by lifting heavy objects for no other reason than because he could!!!
We passed the bay bridge on our way, older and longer yet less famous than the Golden Gate Bridge, presumably because it's not bright orange, a colour called International Orange, G.G. Bridge is painted this colour because it is the best colour that can be seen through thick fog that so very often envelopes the bridge...
Which brings us neatly to the Golden Gate Bridge herself. we though we would show you something of a timelapse slideshow of the fog on the bridge. This first photo was taken from the ferry as we into San Francisco on friday morning...
By the afternoon it had risen somewhat yet the tops still remained covered. the Bridge is nevertheless an incredible structure, capable of swaying up to 26ft from true centre in either direction in the high winds that blow through the bay.
By Saturday afternoon you could pretty much see the whole bridge and could actually start to see the colour of it (it is orange!!!)
Even a little bit of blue sky as we came back on the Sausolito ferry, never say we don't treat you...
But the colour began to disappear as the fog began to roll in again aroun 5:30pm never mind there's always tomorrow... a very special day, it's someones birthday... Herman Melville (born 1819, probably dead now, but still) don't forget to wish him a happy birthday.
A little video of Muir Woods trying to show you the sheer size of the tallest and oldest living things on the planet, pretty impressive.
The Adventures of Mongo and the Boy, written and experienced by
Kate 'I'll walk on the Golden Gate Bridge if it kills me... or Chris' Davies
and
Chris 'The Butt-Man of Alcatraz, part of the Federal Penetentiary swimming team' Davies.
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