Golden Gate Dreaming
The second part of my San Francisco story
As is becoming a tradition on this trip, I used my last day in a city to explore it on my own. This time, the city was San Francisco. Of course, this solo exploration was more because of the circumstances than anything else. As I mentioned in my last post, I was visiting three of my friends in the Bay Area. From Friday through Sunday, everything we did, we did together. On Monday though, they had to return to work. That left me alone, just like the rest of this trip.
Thinking back to how well my quick Google search worked in Denver, I spent barely 15 minutes searching for what to do in the City by the Bay. I knew I had to visit the Golden Gate Bridge, but the rest of my day would be a mystery. It turned out that one of the top attractions, and the first one I visited, is the Grace Cathedral. During dinner, when I was recounting my tales to my friends, they had never heard of the cathedral, but apparently, it is a top tourist destination.
The cathedral itself is impressively huge. Stepping inside, it reminded me of other large cathedrals I visited while in Germany three summers prior. The main calling of the cathedral it seemed was the meditative labyrinth in the center. I had expected huge walls and barriers. In reality, the labyrinth was just laid out in stone on the ground, part of the floor itself. This explained the person walking in circles, like a crazy person. It promised a meditative journey, where one could ease one’s mind. I started on the journey, but I quickly realized the person from earlier was going much slower than me. Not wanting to crash their meditative state of mind, I exited the labyrinth by simply stepping out. For the rest of my visit, I wandered the building, admiring the impressive stain glass windows, sculptures, and other art pieces. The oddest piece of art I saw was a painting of Martin Luther King in the style of saints. An interesting depiction of the great man.
Following the visit to the cathedral, I traveled by streetcar (the new one, not the historic one) to Fisherman’s Wharf, another tourist hot spot. I was unimpressed with the obvious tourist trap. At times the number of people was overwhelming. One of my goals in California had been to try an In-n-Out burger. Upon learning of one in Fisherman’s Wharf, I walked over to it. What did I discover? A line longer than the one for boba tea. Instead, I walked down to a Krispy Kreme and bought a few donuts to enjoy. Not really a healthy option, but the hamburger wasn’t going to be healthy either.
The only cool part of Fisherman’s Wharf was the historic boats on display as part of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. There were three old boats docked in the harbor, each representing a different part of San Francisco history. Based on my past experiences visiting old boats in both Boston and Baltimore, I didn’t really want to go on the boats. Instead, I just took some nice pictures and called it a day.
The last thing on my list was going to the Golden Gate Bridge, but first I wanted to visit the Wave Organ. Not knowing much about it, but hearing it was a cool thing to visit, I hopped on another trolley and attempted to find it. I knew the Wave Organ was at the tip of a peninsula extending into the bay, but I could not find the entrance to the path. My first attempt was at a park near the start of the peninsula. I followed the beach, but was blocked by rocks and a sign that read “Property of Golden Gate Yacht Club Trespassing Prohibited.” Next, I walked past the Yacht Club, but after a while of walking on a public path, I checked Google Maps and realized I had passed the organ. Finally, I attempted to basically walk through the yacht club’s parking lot and past its impressive boats. This turned out to be the right path. After about an hour of wandering, I finally found the Wave Organ.
It was only moderately impressive. The pipes underwater intrigued me. However, I visited at a bad time. The sign at the Wave Organ mentioned the best time to visit is high tide and when the moon is full (resulting in higher high tides). The moon was still a waxing gibbous on my visit to San Francisco and around 2 p.m. when I visited the organ, the tide was close to the lowest it would be. I expected to be able to hear music emanating from the bay near the shore. Instead, I had to listen through some oddly positioned pipes on land. The first two I tried only contained the sound of the ocean like you would hear from a seashell. In the final one, the one closest to the tip of the peninsula, I heard the sloshing of waves over the pipes and what could be interpreted as music. On my next visit, I’ll plan better and perhaps I will hear a full symphony. I’ll just have to watch out for werewolves.
Perhaps the best part of visiting the organ was the view from the tip of the peninsula. I could see the whole bay, from the Golden Gate Bridge to my left, Alcatraz Island straight ahead, and the city of San Francisco to my right. It was a great spot to take panoramas and pictures of the landmarks.
My final destination of the day was the (poorly treated in popular culture) Golden Gate Bridge. An iconic landmark of America, the bridge is a necessary stop on my solo coast-to-coast tour of the country. You can, of course, get views from anywhere along the coastline, but I wanted to walk right up to it.
And walk I did. I went all the way from the organ to the bridge on foot. I had not planned for all of this walking when I left the house, even after the very mild chafing of two days’ prior, but still managed to get to the Welcome Center without a hitch. There were probably hundreds of people on the trail to the bridge, half of them cyclists (a popular experience is renting a bicycle and crossing the bridge, to be picked up by ferry on the other side). Along the way, I kept taking pictures, trying to capture different angles of the bridge. Finally, when I reached the welcome center, I felt accomplished.
Now, the trick became figuring out how to get back to downtown San Francisco. I had not realized just how far away the bridge was from anything important. My trusty Google Maps tried to help me. It, though, told me a bus would come that wasn’t going to the stop I was near. So I just jumped on the next bus that came that was heading toward town. I jumped on and off that bus, trying to catch others going in similar directions. Finally, I reached the familiar 30 bus that I had taken earlier in the day. And, of course, I transferred onto the 12 bus in Chinatown. No day in San Francisco could be complete without a stop in Chinatown.
All in all, I enjoyed my visit to the City by the Bay. There’s a lot to do in San Francisco, and I feel like I should’ve spent more time there. But that’s for another post. Would I live or work there? Probably not. But visit again? For sure.
Where to next? My next post will be from Hillsboro, Oregon, a suburb of Portland.
