December 7, 2023 - Bookstore and Stair Walk

 

Title: December 7, 2023 - Bookstore and Stair Walk
Hike Info : Description : Extra Photo's : Flowers and Plants

Hike Info:

Type: Walking

Trail head: Cow Hollow Inn

Trail: Various streets in San Francisco

Destination: Book Passage, the Ferry Building

Distance:  6.83 miles

Start Time:  9:53

End Time:   5:17

Travel Time:  7:23 (0.93 mph)

Moving Time:  3:44  (1.83 mph)

Elevation Rise:  1,078'

Descent: 1,097‘

Maximum Elevation: 321'

GPS Tracks

Description:

View up Lombard toward Russian Hill

I got up at 7:20 this morning. Either the street was quieter or I slept sounder. I think it was the latter as I felt pretty refreshed this morning. Even though there were two times I got up due to drinking a lot of water yesterday. Breakfast was granola. Sherri is game for another go around on the hills of San Francisco. Today, we are going to a couple of bookstores where my book group gave us gift cards too. Bookstores, one of my favorite places on earth.

 

 

 

 

 

Chestnut St Stairs

I leave a little before 10:00am to drop off some cards at the Post Office. On my way out, a man was coming into the elevator and noted that I looked like a hiker. We talked for a few minutes about urban walking and then was off. It warmed the cockles of my heart to be recognized. Reminds me of something which PD James said, To be selected from the crowd is always gratifying to self-esteem. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alcatraz

After going to the Post Office, I returned back to the front of the hotel where I met Sherri. Rather than head down the busy Lombard St, we go down Chestnut towards Columbus St. We even got in a set of stairs on Chestnut between Larkin and Polk called Culebra Terrace. If I had been a bit more alert, when we reached the top of the hill, we would have gone one block over, back to Lombard and gone down its windy block. Instead, we get to observe a street cleaner. Ordinarily a street cleaner would not rate a place on this blog. This guy is special. The sidewalk is covered with leaves, wet leaves. But before we get to them, an older man comes out with a leaf blower and blows them away. The driver waits for the man to finish before sweeping them away.

This section is a long walk, about a mile and a third. We go down Columbus till we reach Washington Square and Union Street. We wish that it was closer to lunch as there are so many Italian restaurants in this area-the streets are even painted red, green and white. All of the places look like a really good places to eat.

Coit Tower

But our route calls us to go up Union Street. And up we trudge. We ascend a couple hundred feet until we come to the end of the street. This puts us onto Calhoun and our second stairway. The stairway only leads us down to a terrace. But this terrace opens up to show the Bay. We are particularly interested in the Ferry Building as that is our goal today.

We retreat one block to Montgomery Street. The TransAmerica Building opens up right before us. It is well worth being up here. And then we spot the stairs. The stairs have a broken mirror and a woman smoking on it. But we head down anyway. At the bottom, we see our friendly street sweep doing his thing--he finishes up before we reach him.

 

 

North Beach

  We then get onto Vallejo Street with its stairs. The stairs themselves were interesting, but the plant life around them was the main draw for us. There were what looked like banana trees with their large green leaves. Hanging from some trees were Angel Trumpets. 

 

TransAmerica Building

 After going down Vallejo Street a ways, we see another set of stairs going down Kearny St called the Peter Macchiarini Steps. Sherri and I look at each other and decide that these steps do not look too interesting and we will continue down Vallejo. Later on I see a web site describe these stairs as Stairways you'll only see if you have the misfortune of dating someone who lives near them.

 

 

 

 

 

  

City Lights Bookstore

 We are now nearing the North Beach area. There are giant murals indicating that this is where topless dancing all began. But down from that is a store which interests me more: The Baked Bear. It advertises custom ice cream sandwiches. After much consideration, we decided that we really should have lunch first before indulging. It almost sounds like we are acting like grown-ups. After reading some reviews, we should have cast aside our old people's inhibitions and gone for it. I am puting it on the list for next time.

 

 

Sherri climbing Greenwich Stairs

Right down the street from there is our first stop: City Lights Books. This is my kind of bookstore-actually I think a used bookstore is a bit more my style. My Book Group gave me a gift card to this store and another. So I had to make a point of visiting it. Besides, it is part of San Francisco history. Alan Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac were two of the “beat” authors who read here frequently. I found a couple of books I am interested in and purchased them: Living by Annie Dillard and the Novels and Stories of Zora Neale Hurston.

Coit Tower

We now are getting hungry and want to find someplace to eat-either our sandwiches or some eatery which looks appetizing. We pass by the TransAmerican building and enter Maritime Park. About that time, the skies open up and we are in danger of getting soaked. The Ferry Building, our next destination is right across Embarcadero from us, so we get some protection there. We wandered through, looking to see if there was someplace we wanted to eat at: nope, so we found a table and pulled out our sandwiches.

After lunch we found the Book Passage bookstore, the other place my book group had bought a gift card to. This book store is a bit too “corporate” for me to fall in love with. I did buy one book. But the place was a bit jarring after the 1950's City Lights. Still, there is something about a bookstore, for me, it is like heron to an addict. I can come in and just look and imagine. That is one of those reasons why I could never be a librarian.

View from Pioneer Park

Now we start our trip back to Cow Hollow. There are two routes we can go on. The first is to follow the Embarcadero all the way around to Fort Mason and back to our room. The second is to go up and over Telegraph Hill and Pioneer Park with Coit Tower and drop down onto Francisco St. But we do not need to decide for another half of a mile until we get to Pier 23. We walk along the Bay enjoying the sights and sounds.

Hey, that was Pier 23! And now decision time: up and over or continue walking along the Bay? We decided to show that even though we are old, we can still be bold! So up and over we go, up to Coit Tower. We wandered over until we came to the foot of the Greenwich Stairs. Not sure we would have gone up it if we realized how steep it was going up and then later on how steep the downhill would be.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The stairs go through several levels. Each one has a different feel. They all have thriving gardens around them. Some are cement steps, others brick. All have a handrail-which I am grateful for. As we get close to the end of the second level, we see a globe which marks a Little Library and a nice reading area, assuming it was dry. A few steps lady is the lady of the birds.

Climb to Jack Early Park

We then pop out on a road. Fortunately on the way up we met a native who guided us on what to do. We backtrack a little and find the final set of stairs. So up we go. And when we come out, Coit Tower is right there. We stop and look over the Bay and admire the view.

We go up into Coit Tower and find out that the elevator is not working. We are given the option of taking the stairs up. After consideration, I tell Sherri that while I am confident we can make it up 210’ to the top, we still have a long way to go after leaving the tower. So we just admire the CCC murals from the Depression era. They depict life during those sorrowful times. We also go around the outside and enjoy the view of various scenes of the City.

As we leave the tower, I notice that the top floor across the way is vacant. All I can think of is that whoever lives here will have people looking into their windows all day and night long. We head down and pick up Greenwich St, but only for a block. We head down and come to the Julius St Stairs. They are not very notable, less than a block. But it looks like an alleyway, a steep alley. We retreat back and go down Grant. 

 

Reward

Grant is only marginally less steep than the alley. So we slowly make our way down it. We come to our next set of stairs which must be the smallest park in San Francisco: Jack Early Park. A set of stairs led us up between a set of houses to an overlook. More oohs and aahs. A father is holding his baby and keeping it asleep. We try not to disturb them.

Our next stop will be Ghirardelli Square-about ¾ of a mile away. Now comes the wisdom of not climbing Coit Tower comes to play. We see the cable car turnarounds both at Powell-Mason and Maritime Park. Then comes a bit of heaven in the form of an ice cream sundae. I guess this makes up for not partaking at The Baked Bear.

Somehow we feel refreshed after our stop. Even the 1+ mile walk back to our hotel does not seem bad. We pass by several places we are familiar with and get to our room without incident. Once there, we do what is starting to be a tradition: crash. We rest for a while and then take our showers. Showers provide such wonderful relief to one’s body.

Now that our body is recuperating, we need to feed it. We head down to Chestnut and start wandering. We eventually came to a place called Delarosa. In case you cannot tell, this is Italian. After being tempted by several entrees, we decided on sharing a pizza. Very tasty. Plus the wait staff, while not hovering, was attentive to our needs-felt like we were royalty.

We felt happy when we left. So we went for a walk, as if we had not been walking enough. Just a pleasant stroll. Then back to our room, relax and then to bed we go.

 



Extra Photo's

Coit Tower from Ferry Building

Sherri and Gary from  Greenwich Stairs

View from Calhoun Stairs

Looking down Chestnut

Walking down Chestnut

Calhoun Stairs

TransAmerica Building

Montgomery Street Stairs

Peter Macchiarini Steps

Sherri on Greenwich Stairs to Coit Tower

Mural in Coit Tower

View from below Coit Tower

Bay Bridge

Richmond Bridge

Barbary Coast Marker

Cable Cars at Powell--Mason

Steps at Ghiradeli Square

 
Flowers and Plants

December 6, 2023 - Walk to Golden Gate Park

Title: December 6, 2023 - Walk to Golden Gate Park
Hike Info : Description : Trail Lessons : Background : : Extra Photo's 

Hike Info:

Type: Walking

Trail head: Cow Hollow Inn

Trail: Various streets in San Francisco

Destination: Golden Gate Park

Distance:  8.65 miles

Start Time:  10:22

End Time:      5:22

Travel Time:  6:59 (1.24 mph)

Moving Time:  4:02  (2.14 mph)

Elevation Rise:  1,319'

Descent: 1,244‘

Maximum Elevation: 422'

GPS Tracks

 

 

Inside St Vincent de Paul

Description:

I did get a good night’s sleep and even slept in until 7:30. But there are a couple of knocks on our room at Cow Hollow Inn. First, even though we have a room which is quieter than being on Lombard St, we still could hear vehicles such as a siren, cars without mufflers, and a garbage truck. The second is that I think that in order to make a king-size bed, they combined a couple twins. This makes for a really good sized bed, but there is a high spot in the middle which makes it hard to snuggle with your wife. Still, I slept well.

Cow Hollow does not serve breakfast-we knew this coming here. So a bag of granola was brought and a carton of almond milk. I do not know how satisfactory this is for Sherri, buy for me, this is my usual breakfast. I make our usual peanut butter and Nutella sandwich. But Sherri has half of her sandwich left from yesterday, So she will also take that.

St Vincent de Paul Catholic Church

We leave our room at 9:40. The first thing we do is to go down a block to drop some cards at the Post Office. Then it is back over to Stenier St where we start our climb. We come to a Catholic Church which Sherri has read about, St Vincent de Paul. It is open, so we go in and admire the stained glass windows. I forget who said this about churches, particularly those of older style: the construction is made so there is a focal point. Not the speaker in front, but beyond that, Christ in the stained glass. That is how I see this. The apostles and the early church fathers are shown, but our eyes only look at them, but are drawn forward.

 

 

 

 

View from Alta Park

After leaving the church, I asked Sherri what she was thinking about when she was in the church. The beauty of the windows was the reply. Besides the thought I said above I was thinking about what makes a walk and what makes a walk a pilgrimage. I think that appreciation of the beauty of the place gets done in the head. But a pilgrim's heart is what gets affected by going to places like St Vincent de Paul. It moves from appreciation of beauty to a yearning of closeness with God.

 

 

Almost to Lone Mountain Stairway

Now my mind returns to the task at hand-the climb up Steiner. I realize I had not turned on my GPS, so we lose a couple hundred feet of elevation gain and a quarter mile of travel. And that travel is steep, real steep. This takes something out of me, and I think Sherri. But at the top is Alta Park and a good view of the City. It is pleasant up here, a bit windy, but still pleasant.

Our next objective is Lone Mountain. To get there, we will need to walk about a mile. Nothing as steep as Steiner, still there is a fair amount of up, and down. The final approach to Lone Mountain is still steep, but manageable. This gives us our first stairway. This one seems rather ordinary. No mural, no hedges, just a long walkway to Rossi Park. But according to the book, we should have gone to the top of Lone Mountain. From there we would have had a view of Alcatraz to the east and far to the west. But I think doing that would have just knocked us out.

 

 

 

From Rossi, it is a straight walk into the Golden Gate Park

Sherri playing with sound and color

. The hills have been punishing to us and we are tiring. We stop in front of the Conservancy of Flowers. It is closed, but there are benches in front of it. So we stop and have our lunch. At the end of lunch, the rain starts. After going about a hundred yards I realized I had left my bandana on the bench. Back I go, with Sherri waiting in the rain.

By this time, the rain is pretty steady and we think about hanging out at the California Academy of Science. The entrance fee is pretty steep, but maybe getting a membership will force us to get up to the City more often. It turns out with a senior membership, I can bring anybody in, including Sherri. So we get one. We just need to come one more time to get beyond break even.

 

 

 

 

Macaws in Rainforest

The idea was to take shelter in this place and maybe spend a couple of hours exhibits. And that is what we started to do. We wandered around some of the natural history areas. Some of it was showing fishes such as the blunt nose rays and other more visual fishes from the top. Then there was an exhibit showing how color and sound inhabited the natural world. What got me mesmerized, like it did when I was a child was the Foucault Pendulum. A docent explained that this was not the one I saw as a child, but it got restored due to popular demand.

It was still raining, so we looked a bit more and saw a domed exhibit. What caught my eye was the word Osher, like the lifelong learning classes I take. But this had to do with a rainforest exhibit. This is not a sophisticated stationary stuffed animal in a colored walled box. No! This you entered into a very large glass living forest, compete with macaws and butterflies and who knows what else. Temperature was in the mid 80’s with a 70-80% humidity. The environment was so green. The pathway snaked around the domed area, rising up through the various levels of the forest canopy till we were over it, looking down. The large blue butterfies would fly right up to you, circle you and fly off. I took awhile to get a good picture. This was truly mesmerizing-I know I have used that word earlier, but this topped my earlier infatuation.

 

Bluntnose Ray

Exiting the dome took us down to below the domed area into Steinhart Aquarium. There were fishes of course. The areas were separated out by various geographical environments. We were particularly interested in the California coastal area. More life is out there than I thought. This somehow transitioned into venomous creatures, particularly of California.

When we exited, the rain had stopped and we still had miles to go to return back to our room. There was a bit of weariness to our step. So we attempted our route to have the least amount of climbing. But being San Francisco that can be said easier than accomplished.

Getting out of Golden Gate Park I got turned around. But checking with our expert, Google Maps, I discover that I am taking a left turn instead of a right. Backtracking a hundred feet puts us traveling down 8th St. We follow this street for a ways. This is a good change of pace for us, at least not too much elevation change. We are slowing down a bit. As much as being in the Academy was a break, we were not refreshed, if anything, we are more tired.

Then as we are plodding up a hill, it starts to rain. Then we turn down a steep downhill and the skies open up, with a steady stream going fast by our feet. We decided to step under an overhanging front door’s alcove for protection. We wait for ten minutes and the rain lightens up.

Rain in Golden Gate Park

We have been making our way to the top of the Lyon Street Stairs. We know this more as “Cindy and Kay” Stairs as they were in the City over the Summer and showed some pictures of it on Facebook. These stairs are long and amazing. They are right beside the eastern boundary of the Presidio, leading down to the edge of Cow Hollow. There are homes right beside the stairs with hedges and gardens lining it. The only thing missing are flowers blooming filling the area with fragrance.

I am tiring even with this being a downhill section. I hang onto the stairway rails for stability. Even on my best days, looking down a long flight of stairs leaves me a little unstable. When we made it down, there was a sense of relief.

The end of the stairs is at a cul-de-sac. Even though there are no stairs here, it is a steep downhill. We navigate this successfully and then find a street just off of Lombard. We go down it until we reach our hotel.

Sherri coming down Lyon St Stairs

By the time, we are in our room, we are exhausted and lay down to rest. After an hour of getting close to being a zombie, we decide to figure out what we want to eat. Italian sounds good and there is a place next store to us: Ristoria Palma. We went down and found an empty store front. Sherri wants to check out the restaurant next door: Isa. as it turns out it cuisine is Mediterranean Cal-French, heavy into sea food. Neither of us are into sea food.

But the owner is very friendly and comes out and talks with us as we look over his menu. He understands our tastes and describes several other local restaurants. Maybe tomorrow night. But tonight, we just want something safe and go across the street to Amici’s. We were here last time when Andrea ran her 50K run. We enjoyed our meal and were satisfied.

Afterwards we retired to our room and watched the Golden State Warriors game on TV. We had thought about attending in person, but we would have been in the nose-bleed seats. We could see better on TV. After the Warriors won the game, we turn in. It has been a long tiring day and at 10:00 I am turning into a pumpkin.

 

Trail Lesson: Not all miles are the same.

Background

Book: Stairway Walks in San Francisco by Mary Burk with Adah Bakalinsky

Amici: Amici’s is a restaurant we visited often in Mountain View and once here. He serves good food with good sized servings at a reasonable price. The service was very good and close to our hotel.

California Academy of Science: This place has the WOW! factor going for it. We spent most of our time in the OSHER Rainforest, being mesmerized by the butterflies which seemed to want to be friends with us. There is so much more to see there than this which we did not explore. Being of that age, we got a senior membership which made the pricing pretty acceptable and will enable us to return several times.

Extra Photo's

Lone Mountain Stairway

View from Alta Park

St Augustine in St Vincent de Paul Church

Looking down Steiner St

View from Alta Park

Top of Rainforest

Butterfly feeding station

Underwater view

Sherri and her reindeer friend

Looking down Lyon St

Gary going down the Lyon St Stairs

Looking up a part of the Lyon St Stairs

One of the 131 hearts in San Francisco

December 5, 2023 - San Francisco

 Title: December 5, 2023 - San Francisco

Hike Info : Description : Background 

Hike Info:

Type: Car : Walking 

 Description:

I got up a bit later than I normally do. In this case it was 7:30. I did a few things, but going on a walk was not one of them. We sort of lolly-gagged around and did not get started real early on our trip.

By the time we were ready to leave, left instructions with Steven and said our goodbyes, it was closing in on 11:00am. Sherri started off driving-always a good thing. But I suspect she did not want to face the City traffic later. Anyway, she drove to Gilroy where we topped off with Costco gas.Then wandered around Gilroy trying to find the Smart&Final-to pick up some bags of chips.

Once that had been accomplished, we stopped at Black Bear Diner for lunch or an early dinner. It had been at least four years, if not five since we last ate at a Black Bear. I ordered my normal, a Western Burger. When it came, it seemed smaller, almost like a large slider size. I suspect our waiter had not been around that long and did not know how big they were previously. It tasted OK, but not running over with BBQ sauce like I remembered. Then again, it may be that my memory is faulty.

I drove from Gilroy to the City. Google took us up Highway 101. There were a few places where there were slow downs, but it was not as bad as I feared it would be. We got into San Francisco around 4:30. Still it was not too bad. I misread the car’s GPS and turned off on the wrong off-ramp-would Google have let me do that? Still, it was not bad. We meandered through the heart of San Francisco, eventually getting on Lombard. In a mile or so, we made it to our home for the next three days: Cow Hollow Inn.

We are on the third floor, room 305. Everything is clean and comfortable. Maybe a bit closer to Lombard than we expected, still not bad noise-wise. We will see if we hold this opinion at the end of our trip.

We rested until about 6:15. Then went for a walk west on Chestnut to Divisidero. We made a loop over back to Lombard which brought us back to Chestnut. Walking back down this, we came across a bookstore, Books, Inc. We hit the jackpot there! One of the missions of this trip was to find something to give to our book group. Eureka! Then we continued on down Chestnut eyeballing shops to go to: Noah’s Bagel’s for breakfast, Over the Moon for ice cream, Super Duper Burgers or Marina Pizza for dinner all sound good. There are many foodie shops around. We will see what we come up with. Our trip: 2 miles.

It is 7:30 by the time we get back to our room. I write some cards; Sherri does some exercises. Then we have some of Black Bear Diner’s Red Velvet Cake. We lounged around, before going to bed at 10.

Background

Black Bear Diner-Gilroy. We had not been to a Black Bear Diner since before the pandemic. We have always enjoyed the good food, good service, good-sized meals, and good prices. When we were on our way to San Francisco, we stopped here for a late lunch. The service was good. Maybe the memory is fading about what we ate before. But the food, while acceptable, did not seem as flavorful as before and the size of the Western burger was more slider sized-the onion rings took up more room than the burger. And I could have sworn that the Western Burger had bacon on it before rather than as an extra. This was one of the more expensive meals which we had on our trip-and we did not visit a McDonalds. So all in all, we were disappointed.