The first leg of our coast to coast journey of the US of A saw us take a flight from London Heathrow to San Francisco. Economy seating of course, and because we were not checked in early enough Jo and I had seats that weren’t next to each other. Instead one of us sat in front of another for the 11 hour flight. It was a bit late taking off from Heathrow but would land in SFO earlier than originally planned.
Day 1 – Journey To US
There was a lot of good entertainment on the Virgin Atlantic flight but the socket for my headphones was faulty so it meantt I couldn’t watch anything. I wasn’t even able to pair my apple airpods to the system to do that, as I did on the Air Pants flight to Japan last year. I spent the flight Raw-dogging it, I tried to get a bit of sleep but being tall and a bit stocky it was not comfortable. We flew over Greenland at one point too that was cool to see but not easy to get a view of it as we were in the centre three seats, nowhere near a window.
The flight landed in San Francisco at 15:45 local time and we were straight out to the baggage conveyors to pick up our cases. We had each one checked in bag as we were carrying enough for three weeks worth of driving across country. In actual fact, I had only packed a weeks worth of undercrackers, socks, and shirts figuring that there would be laundry facilities on the campgrounds we stayed at.
During the research I’d found that a transfer from the airport to the hotel would be around $100 and I’d also noticed that we could use the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) system to get to a station really close to where our hotel was at a much more reasonable price. It meant that we had to lug the heavy cases up and down the stairs when the escalators were not working and this gave me a good workout.
We alighted at Powell Street, walked around the corner and found our place for the next three nights. Hotel Zelos was right next to Powell Street and had some good links to the BART system and was also near to the turnaround for the Hyde Powell Cable Car. We checked in and were told that we’d been upgraded to a room on the 7th floor with a city view and got to the room at about 17:30 local time. Because I’d not slept on the plane and we’d been awake for a full 24 hours I suggested that we had a quick kip and spent 90 minutes catching some z’s before getting up and out of the hotel for a wander.
Nightcrawlers
With no real plans for this evening we just winged it and went to the Powell St turnaround for a ride on the cable car, to see where it would take us. We queued (or got in line) for a short time and then jumped on a vintage cable car that would drive us through the city streets and take us up to Hyde Street for a look out over the San Francisco Bay. On the journey up there it was exciting and when the driver released from the cable (or rope) for the downhills it did pick up some momentum. I’d never been on a cable car like this before and was fascinated by the fact that the cable ran all the way from the Powell Street turnaround to the Hyde Street turnaround, all in a channel under the road surface. Quite an amazing system.
It was also fun as we were sitting in the open part at the front and people in front of us were hanging on whilst standing on the step. It was a bit chilly but it was made up by the views at every corner an dbrow of hill that we passed. There was some good sport with the grips (people driving) shouting at the motorists and passengers warning them to not hang off the side too far. There was one occasion where a car in front was trying to reverse parallel park into the only space around for miles and they were making a dogs dinner of it, so much so that the cable car would have taken off the mirrors if they’d left it there, so the grip and conductor on the car were shouting and ringing the distinctive bell to get them to park quicker. Obviously, it’s easier to park when people are shouting and ringing bells at you. Ha ha.
San Francisco Bay, Past Pier 39.
Once we got there we saw the Golden Gate bridge in the setting sun and stood on the shore of the bay for a while before going for a walk down towards Fisherman’s Wharf. The evening was beautiful, if a little chilly. Guess who didn’t bring a jumper out with him, so we had to pop into a gift shop and I picked up a SF sweatshirt.
We walked to Fisherman’s Wharf along the promenade if you’d call it that and there were many shops and restaurants as well as a huge amoutn of Waymo cars, driverless Jaguar Taxis that you hail via an app. There are 700 of these in San Francisco alone and many locals detest them and try to get them to fail.
The next stop was the Sky Star Ferris Wheel where we rode in a cabin on a few rotations whilst we could see out to Golden Gate Bay, and then the city skyline and Oakland Bay Bridge the other direction. It was a good exercise in getting orientation ahead of the next couple of days that we’d have in the city. On The skyline I could see a couple of the tall buildings such as the Transamerican Pyramid that we’d see closer up the next day. The windows in the gondolas though were scratched and filthy, not really conducive with being able to make good photos through them.
We tried to get a bite to eat at a surf bar on the Pier 39 (whilst singing Stereophonics’ Have a Nice Day) but they’d closed not long before. We headed back to the hotel via an Uber whihc dropped us off outside a Burger King for a late snack before hitting the hay for another full day the next day.
Day 2 – Bus, Prison and Robot Cars.
Day 2 was a Saturday and started with a breakfast in the Dirty Habit bar & restaurant area of the hotel. It was a bit weird and the staff kept forgetting to bring us what they were supposed to bring us. Jo loved her big brekky anyway, and I dont really have breakfast so just had a couple of coffees to set me up for the day. The plan was to go for an explore, a visit to MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) and then a trip to Alcatraz for a behind the scenes tour and evening audio tour.
Hop On
We set off out of the hotel dodging some of the many un-housed people on the streets who aren’t shy about standing in your way and being overly intimidating. We walked up to Union Square which was only a five minute walk and then met a guy handing out leaflets for the Big Bus Tour which was great because we were holding a couple of tickets on the Go City passes, we’d paid for two attractions and the first would see us jump on board this Hop On Hop Off tour around the highlights of the city.
The two passes for the two of us cost $170, the Big Bus tickets would have cost $56 each so this is $112 of the total. With the other tickets for the second attraction costing $30 each we saved $2 by using the Go City app and passes.
We headed off around the city and were amazed by just how windy it was, we remarked that it’s not known as the windy city, a joke that would continue into the Chicago leg of the trip. As we travelled across the Golden Gate bridge I hat to take off my baseball cap and subject my balding bonce to the full power of our star. On the way around we saw the Civic Center which looks like the Capitol in Washington DC, we went over the bridge then back into the city and near Lombard Street before going along Fisherman’s Wharf and then back around to the Chinatown and the Financial District. There were some good sights but I felt the tour was lacking some big picture items, many of the sights could be seen more easily just by walking around, but then it makes it into a long walk.
She’s So Modern!
We jumped off near the second attraction that our Go City pass would assist with, San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art (SFMoMA). I love visiting galleries and museums in places that I’ve never been before. There were some great pieces of art with the actual buildings and fittings being part of the overall appeal for me too. I loved the super staircases and even some of the gallery layouts that made it feel maze like and a great place to explore.
These two galleries of images show art from the colourful oneway light tunnel on the top floor. a recreation of Duchamp’s “Fountain” works by Chuck Close whose work is now tainted by the alleged sexual harassment. Still remarkable work though.
Gerhard Richter’s “Fenster” is the image immediately above, which is my favourite work of the whole gallery. From a distance you could easily be forgiven for thinking it was a window with a wall on the other side and a shadow of the frame being cast upon it. Works by Andy Warhol whilst considered a bit marmite (love it or hate it) I do enjoy the simplicity of the works and yet the methods to silk screen print many of them would have been a stressful experience. Louise Bourgeois’s work featured in the gallery too but the spidery nature of them made Jo feel very creeped out and she doesn’t even like looking at these photos. After having seen a couple of these in different places too, the furthest one being Tokyo I still find it amaong to see the scale of the sculptures and the organic nature of the materials.
A couple of times that made me chuckle were Coke Spoon 01 and Coke Spoon 02 by Tobias Wong which sees the artist recreate the lid of a BIC Biro and even the old coffee stirrer from McDonalds out of metal, bronze and gold. Obviously I remember these spoons being available at the counter in Maccies during my younger years but Id never linked them, and certainly not a biro lid with the drug taking fraternity.
There was another of Richter’s pieces of work taht was a grid of colurs on the wall titled “256 Farben” (256 Colours) and this was created mathematics and randomness to choose the colours and their location. Again, it’s something that I heard people say “I could do that” but the work on the wall wasn’t theirs and they may have never experimented with paint colours like Richter. I do understand that it is easy to “not get” a piece of art but that doesn’t mean it was easy to make, easy to generate the idea or even sell afterwards. I’m sure it is the same with some of my work, “it’s just a photograph, I could do that on my phone” but many people don’t and possibly never will. I do think in a museum like this that the number of people with this sort of attitude is reduced as you’ve had to pay to get in and not many true art appreciators would discuss the work like this.
The I did purchase a couple of postcards in the museum shop, one was the 256 Farben by Richter and the other was a Robert Bechtle “Alameda Gran Torino” which is a painting of an American family station wagon, similar to the famous estate car of the family in National Lampoon’s Vacation. The works are very photorealistic and every time I see one it causes a double take. I think there is one in the Wolverhampton Art Gallery.
The tickets shown in the above image show a price of $14 but to buy the ticket normally would have cost $30 each. My Student Art Pass doesn’t work in the US either, gutting.
We headed out of the museum with the next target in mind, being a bit further away than a quick walk we fired up the Uber app and got a lift to the St Mary Of The Assumption’s Cathedral, which I’d researched about as one of the brutalist buildings in San Francisco. It did not disappoint.
We walked around the front of the building for a short while making a few photographs and then Jo said she would go and find some drinks and snacks so I could have a good explore. The externals of the building reminded me very much of St Mary’s Cathedral in Tokyo that I visited last year with the huge curved structures and the long tall glazing that looked black from the outside but would no doubt hide some beauty within. I headed around the side to see if there were any different angles, as the front doors were closed so I didn’t think I’d be able to get in. To my surprise there were doors on the side and they were open. Yay.
The cathedral was designed in the 1960’s by Pier Luigi Nervi, Pietro Belluschi and completed in 1971. These two architects were accused of using similar designs to that of the Tokyo design which was by Kenzo Tange. For me though there is a definite link and it grows even more so once inside. There was some amazing architecture completed to hold up the fantastic structure and it appears to rest on the four large supports. The light in the building is restricted at height due to the tal stained glass windows that travel vertically up the wall and across to the centre of the top, producing a huge cross of light. There are super open glazing around the base of the building too which let in plenty of natural light. The concrete is very pale and in the majority of cases you can easily see the wooden forming boards that were used to cast the sections.
As I was walking around, after asking if I could take photos, there were some great viewpoints and I could have spent the rest of the day inside here. There was also an organist playing some tunes, that I’m not 100% sure were all religious but it did sound amazing. After a short while I got a call off Jo to say she was back outside, and as she didn’t fancy coming in we decided to make our way to the next part of the scheduled plan.
I’ve just googled what it means when referring to the assumption and Catholic dogma created in 1950 states that Mary (the mother of Jesus) was taken into heaven at the end of her life, without dying. Every day is a school day eh?
Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200
Next on the agenda, using the term loosely, was a trip to “The Rock”. The island of Alcatraz in the bay that contains the remains of a penitentiary famous worldwide. We had booked the tickets at home and I think we were limited to booking three months in advance at the earliest, but booked the Behind The Scenes Tour which leads into the Audio Tour in the evening. We were due to meet at Pier 33 for the boat to leave at 17:20 hours so we arrived and sat to wait, but not for too long. A big boat arrived at the pier with around 200 people disembarking before we got on, there was only around 20 of us in total and we were all given a little green badge to wear so that they’d know who was on the BTS tour.
The view going across from SF to Alcatraz was spectacular too, we could see the skyline of the city in the day, a view of the Oakland Bay Bridge (Bay Bridge) and also the Golden Gate Bridge . It was very windy again on the boat so the hat was stowed safely in the bag once more.
We got off the boat and met the guide who began to take us around the parts of the island normally off limits to the audio tour guests. We got to go into the old woodworking shop and see the gun alleys where armed guards were monitoring the prisoners from above, before going into the tunnels for a brief time and then into the dungeons where it was said that many prisoners who were conscientious objectors in the wars were kept in pitch black as punishment. The guide turned off the lights na dit was really that dark that I could not see my hand in front of my face. The urge in here to mess about was strong but I didn’t want to be “that guy” and annoy the other guests who were busy getting creeped out in the black cellar. We had a walk through the library and into an area of cells that were normally off limits before saying good bye to the guide and picking up the audio tour hardware that we would use to guide us around the rest of the site.
We did this and went out into the cells and had a look at the cells made up to look like the Escape From Alcatraz film cells with the cardboard covers for the holes in the walls etc. There were even some paper heads on the beds as per the Clint Eastwood film. It was interesting to see the history and hear about the conditions that inmates and guards lived in. There were some signs of graffiti on the island that mentioned Indians and the guide had told us that it was occupied by a group of native Americans who had been forced out of their reservation and decided that a good spot would be the island. It was an interesting story also about how the American people reacted and how, now the graffiti is left alone and even maintained by the tribe of natives who originally daubed it on there.
In the gift shop on the way back to the boat I found a graphic novel (comic book) of the plot to escape usin gthe paper heads and bought this along with a postcard. There were also some stamps that I banged into my notebook to capture them, as I had done in the Japan holiday the previous year.
It was a great way to round out the day and the BTS tour and evening audio tour cost us $99 each. With the boat travel included too it was a value for money trip. The photos I took as we were on the guided tour were a little rushed although the guides were good about me hanging back for an extra thirty seconds etc. I was shooting on both Leica Q3 and also my Leica M6 loaded with Kodak Portra 400 and the 28mm Elmarit lens. I now have my photos back from AG Photographic Labs but will save them for a follow up post looking into my analogue photography from the whole trip.
Johnny Cab?
Once landed at Pier 33 again it was time to find something to eat so we stopped at the Wipe Out Bar on Fisherman’s Wharf for something filling, and also a refreshing drink. We stayed in this gaff for a short while and it was rammed, they had people coming in and out all of the time. Then it was time to head back to the hotel. The cable cars were no longer running and I didn’t fancy walking through the city to the hotel so we thought about an Uber. Then I thought back to the planning spreadsheet and how I was looking forward to a ride in a Waymo Taxi, so I hailed one on the pre-downloaded app for my iPhone. The pick up point was away from the wharf side and down a smaller side street, so that the car can find it’s way to a pick up sppot more easily without the complicated chaos of the place where wed jsut come from.
We stood at the kerb marked with PICK UP SPOT and the Jaguar I Pace with all of the sensors pulled over for us, with the details flashing around the central turret on the roof. We got into the back seat and took in the surroundings before the car indicated and took off away from the kerb. It drove smoothly and calmy through the tight streets of the city, seemingly stopping when it wasn’t sure if it would squeeze through a gap and then moving on once clear. It was strange seeing the steering wheel moving on its own and the screens in the vehicle showed the perceptions being captured by the onboard sensors and computer. We could see people in and around the vehicle, on bikes, if they had a dog, other cars, parked vehicles and traffic lights and signs. All visible to the vehicle that Waymo says contains the knowledge and experience of 200 Million miles driven on public roads. It was impressive.
Until, we got nearer the hotel and ot turned into a side street that was the collecting point for people addicted to drugs, un-housed people and the people in the city with many more issues than they should have. In front of the auto piloted Jaguar now was a hunched over man pushing, very slowly, a shopping trolley (or cart) with all of his belongings held inside it. He was in no rush to move out of the way of one of the 700 nuisance vehicles that roamed the streets. He may have previously been a cab driver whose job prospects have been blighted by tourists using automatic vehicles. It wasn’t only this fellow that was a cause for concern, people hunched over with what is called online the Fentanyl-lean. People in doorways or sitting against the walls mis-using drugs and showing aggression to each other. It was a real Mos Eisley and the car stopped right in the middle of it. Nobody showed any signs of targeting the vehicle or the occupants so I was probably worried over nothing, but it took the trolley guy a good while to move out of the way and I was frightened that the car might give up, open the doors and turf us out.
It didn’t though, it waited patiently and then managed to weave its way through the rest of the area to get out onto a main street again and then drop us at the hotel. It was technically amazing but I wondered whether a human driver would have avoided that area, and then whether the area was like it is because of non-human drivers. The statistics on the Business Insider website detail that 15% of all rides in SF are now using Waymo and whilst driving jobs are lost, they do offer jobs on the maintenance teams required for the upkeep of these huge fleets, albeit at lower wages than they would have had as drivers. It is a complicated time for firms and employees as we navigate through the changeover from human to robot driven vehicles. There was a big enough fuss when Uber and Lyft came in but they are still using humans to drive. We also saw more of these cars in Las Vegas as well as ZOOX cars whihc offer similar options and if it continues at this pace there’ll be fewer driven cabs and more “Johnny Cabs” on the streets of the big cities. I even saw one with a safety driver behind the wheel in London as it underwent training earlier in the year, so they’re on their way.
Back at the hotel now, we got back to the room, wrote our nightly journal about the days events and a chat about the next day which would feature A trip to Lombard Street and end up at a baseball game. It would be our last day and night in San Francisco so we would try and fit loads of other stuff in too.
Day 3 – Walkabout and Baseball Game
Sunday morning and I hadn’t slept properly at all, maybe a bit of jet lag and being in a strange place. We got up and headed out to the Powell Street Turnaround for the Cable Car that we planned to catch and go up to Lombard Street. I stood in the queue and Jo went to the nearby Burger King for a breakfast meal that she could eat in the queue. It was taking a long time and as I was waiting I had a chance to look around at the locality. I bet ten years ago that this was a hive of activity and major name shops but it appears that the shops and big stores are empty, boarded up and covered in bill posters. It was very run down, there were people sitting in the streets with cardboard signs, people wandering around holding cups out in front of them and asking for money. It was all feeling a bit sad and as if the city had given up on the buildings and people in this area.
Cable Car II
Jo returned with her breakfast and stood in the queue as a busker was setting up his keyboard next to us, I found it funny that he had a bungee cord to keep his equipment tight against the fence but it had stopped being a springy bungee and was just a slightly stretchy bit of rope that took him ages wrapping around the parts he wanted to secure. He had a good size amp connected to the keyboard and microphone so it was great to actually be at the front of the line when he fired it up and began wailing. We stood at the front as we didn’t get on this cable car, we got on the next one which would aim us at Hyde Park again, as this goes over the top of Lombard Street. On the way up the hill to our destination we were seated near the front again and was able to take some daytime photos from onboard, I also made a short vid of the gripman operating his handles to Take Rope and speed up the vehicle. The rope travels at a constant 15 mph under the road surface and the grip can grab onto the rope to speed up and release to gather some speed on the way down hills. It was exhilarating again to be travelling fast on this vintage piece of transport.
Lombard Street
t looks like a snake from snakes and ladders or a chute from ladders and chutes (if you’re Scottish) but it’s a road that connects Hyde Street to Leavensworth Street but the space it needs to fit into is not very far, and the drop in elevation is severe, so the designers created a snaking road that sees one way traffic travelling down it. Its such a tourist hot spot that guides recommend visiting early morning or later evening. It’s a 27 degree gradient designed in 1922 and cars have to steer sharply around each bend on the way down the hill. It has featured in a large number of Hollywood Films too, Almost every vehicle has a camera poking out of it or motorbikes have 360 degree cameras hanging off the rear.
We stared to walk downwards grabbing a few photos on the way when a fella coming up the other way misjudged his steps and fell face first on the concrete with an enormous bang. His family and friends were there with him and they picked him up and checked he was ok, I think he was mostly embarrassed that this had happened but it made me more certain to watch my step on this uneven footpath alongside the zig-zag road. Once at the bottom I too a couple of photos facing uphilll and a small video too that will most likely appear in a bigger video of the whole trip.
Concrete And Chinatown
We walked from the bottom of Lombard Street and headed through Chinatown to Sue Bierman park where Jo and I had heard that some parakeets could be found flying or nesting in the trees. Jo was possessed with finding the birds that she’d heard about and was using her Merlin app on the phone to identify the birds making a noise in the surrounding trees. There was a great many people about as it was also the day of the San Francisco marathon and there were runners heading back home with their bling around their necks, runners still running and friends and family gathered to support them. We walked back and went past the Transamerican Pyramid and also the Embarcadero Centre which also contains elements of Brutalism. Obviously I had to stop and capture a few images as we walked around the base of the buildings and take in their amazing form factors.
On The Waterfront
Once at the park and looking around completed we checked the time and it was rapidly approaching the time we needed to be at the baseball game. I had bought these tickets online at a total of $117 for the pair including service charges. So we didn’t want to be late and miss our chance to see our first ever in-person baseball game. The only time I had seen any baseball before was on the TV in the Irish bar in Tokyo where the Japanese take their own leagues very seriously.
We headed up the promenade past the even numbered piers and alongside the course of the marathon with a few stragglers making their way back to the finish line and their glory. We walked towards Oakland Bay Bridge, or Bay Bridge as it is known locally and saw one of the pieces of art in situ that we’d seen the designs for in the MoMA the day before. There was a huge bow and arrow in the ground up ahead, and not far a large metallic fish on the side of the pier. It was interesting walking under the Bay Bridge which was really high above but you could hear the thundering of the transport as it made it’s way over to it’s destination.
I wish I was a little bit taller
Once we got closer to the ground we could see the name of it, Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. We got in the short line for the turnstiles and the tickets on my phone to hand I opened up the PDF and it showed only one ticket, the second page was blank. Bugger. Jo had gone in to the ground but there was no way they’d let me in with no QR code to display so I was sent off to the ticket office to get a paper copy of the ticket. Meanwhile Jo was in the ground being given a free t-shirt with Chappy on it. One of the Giants players with the nickname Chappy I guess but I don’t know the team at all.
With my tickets in hand I headed back to the gate and then passing through made it to find Jo and we headed up to get a drink before we walked up the many ramps up to our seats in section 315 row 5.
It was up quite high but not right at the very top, we sat down and immediately felt the atmosphere permeate us, Jo was joining in with the response required tunes where a clap or a shout was warranted after the hammond organ played a jingle.It was also very hot, there was a bright sun and no clouds, and more importantly no shade for us. We slathered on the sun cream as best we could and sat to enjoy the game. At the start I knew very little about the game, only what I remember from Baseball on the Wii Sports game all those years ago. “Batter Out!” I picked up the way that the board was documenting the Strikes, Balls and Outs, but there were a few people with a blank scoresheet completing it with the information as it happened. It seems that there are some people who take it extrremely seriously.
One guy in front of us was joining in with the chants too, as many were, and I was trying to hear who they “hated” and thought that they “sucked”. A short tune would happen on the organ over the loudspeakers then the crowd would shout “blah blah sucks” but I couldn’t make it out. I asked him and he took a minute away from his scoresheet to explain how the Gants fans had no time at all for the LA Dodgers. Today Giants were playing the LA Angels and they eventually lost by a very narrow margin but it seems that there is no love lost for the other LA Team. I say they lost narrowly too, but it’s because both teams were poor and there were not many hits or runs. It ended 4 runs vs 3.
We had sat down too and as I was wearing my Shrewsbury Town football shirt, the guy in the next seat asked us where we were from and he said that they were over here from Cardiff. We had a short chat and then they got on with watching the game him cheering very enthusiatically for the Giants player Devers.
Drive in – Walk In
We left and headed out of the stadium with the intention to find some food. Jo had seen Mel’s Drive-In diner the night before so we thought we’d walk there from the stadium, it didn’t seem that far and we’d spent enough on Ubers and Waymos recently.
When we were nearly at the Diner, most of the other baseball fans had thinned out and I noticed a few buildings that were familiar, I said to Jo that I thought we were very near the hotel and it turns out it was just around the corner.
We had a bite to eat and drink before heading back to the hotel and on the journey I managed to notice a huge black rubber dildo on the street, no explanation as to why it was there, but I made a photo of it and didn’t go anywhere near it. Near our destination was a target so we went in and had a look for some things that we would need on the next part of the journey, as well as some cans of drink and some Pringles obviously!
IOn the hotel we had a drink in the hotel bar Dirty Habit before heading to the room to prep for the next day which would be an exit from the hotel and San Francisco and a short ride on BART to Union Station before picking up our transport for the next 15 nights.
Stay tuned for Day 4 in the next post in which we pick up the campervan and begin the journey East through the US of A.
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