Tour Diary - Day Eighteen
Jan. 25th, 2017 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanAnd so, our saga reaches the West Coast...
Friday 21st August - Oakdale To Oakland
Waking from a typical night in a typical roadside no-tell motel - thin walls, soft bed, stale cigarette smoke permeating everything... Great shower water pressure though, so you wake up pretty quickly & are ready to GTFO of there
Nothing much on the streets of Oakdale screamed "breakfast" at us, so we hit the highway westward towards San Francisco. A couple of small towns along the road, we found an IHOP...or dOHI, as it will now be known (the sugar packets were upside down). Afterwards, we wanted to tip the waitress, because she'd been quite good-natured & patient with the foreigners wading through the menu, but we were told to pay at the counter. Difficult to leave a tip there for an individual waitress though, which raises another problem for us regarding tipping in the USA. We know the staff are on minimum wage & rely on tips to bolster their income, but sometimes the service is good, but the food is ordinary... or worse. Sometimes it's the other way - great food, but staff who don't care if you live or die - though I'm sure they'd have an opinion if you asked them. Or, like this time, you hand over your tip to someone else & hope it gets to the right, deserving hands. No issues with the food on this occasion - it was only a pancake place, how fancy do you want it to be??! Terrible coffee, as expected, but it did the job of opening my eyes that last fraction, ready to face the freeways to the big city
And they were an eye-opener alright. The traffic built steadily, the closer we got to SF & the highway became freeway & widened to 4-5 lanes full of people in much more of a hurry than we were... except for the ones who really weren't - usually lurking near the exit I wanted to take, doing about 30m/ph & a great job of blocking everyone's progress. I know everyone needs a purpose in life, but really?!? Geddoudamyway!!
Our first destination was the Marin County Civic Centre - designed by Flank Wroyd LLight & featured in one of Julia's favourite movies 'Gattaca'. 1950s-style futuristic on the outside, even featuring a shiny metallic masthead at one end, it's a blend of symmetry, lines & curves on the inside & a photographer's paradise. Even the Janitor we asked for directions is a budding photographer & made us jealous by telling us he comes in at night, at sunset, at sunrise... OK fella... enough! Parts of the building are reminiscent of FLW's other famous work, the Guggenheim Art Museum in New York City - especially the library on the top floor, with its domed ceiling. A cafeteria with fountain & garden features suggests it's a nice place to work. Lucky Public Servants!!
Since we were on a movie theme daytrip, next stop was Muir Woods, to see if any talking apes were hanging (& swinging) around. However, it seemed the rest of San Francisco had the same idea. All 3 carparks were full & even the approach roads had cars pulled over on the sides. No giant redwoods or apes for us today then... maybe Monday when everyone's back at work, or school. Hopefully
So, movie option no. 3 was Mount Davidson, the highest natural point in San Francisco & site of a memorable scene in the first Dirty Harry movie. I remember seeing the big cross at the top on the way into town from the airport 4 years ago, but we never got there. This time then. There was heavy fog rolling in over the Golden Gate Bridge, but the signs for the toll booths were clear enough. Toll? I don't remember paying a toll last time we were here...
Turns out you can't drive to the top of Mount Davidson, you park on what looks like a suburban street, after quite an incline, then walk a dirt path up to the BIG cross at the top & sweeping views of the city... when the fog clears. The park was sold to the Armenian-American community in the 1990s after complaints that a city park shouldn't have a religious symbol in it... albeit one that had been burned down 3 times in its history before they made a concrete one, then the commemorative plaque was stolen. Do you think your god is trying to tell you something... like, "Don't put a cross here, I don't like it!!"?
By now, it was time to head for our accommodation - an Air B'n'B in Oakland, across one of the larger bridges, along more freeway... unless you're me & miss the exit you need, so spend 20 minutes driving through the Port district, trying to get back on the darned bridge. At least we drove past the SFPD office, making the Dirty Harry experience more complete. Battling afternoon peak hour into Oakland, we finally turned off from all the traffic & entered the quiet streets of Lakeshore, met our Host (& 2 of 3 cats), dragged in some luggage, collapsed for a while, then thought about dinner
Lakeshore Drive is exactly that - the main road along the shore of Lake Merritt. There's a stretch that has all the restaurants, fast food,coffee shops & providores, so we found an Indian place with a menu that looked appetising - the food that is, not the menu. Not as good as the Indian we regularly have in Sydney, but either we're just spoiled, or have been lucky with our choices so far. A visit to a nearby donut shop, then a short walk along the lake's shoreline, photographing the reflected lights. The sleep bomb went off for both of us, so back to lodgings & bed
Friday 21st August - Oakdale To Oakland
Waking from a typical night in a typical roadside no-tell motel - thin walls, soft bed, stale cigarette smoke permeating everything... Great shower water pressure though, so you wake up pretty quickly & are ready to GTFO of there
Nothing much on the streets of Oakdale screamed "breakfast" at us, so we hit the highway westward towards San Francisco. A couple of small towns along the road, we found an IHOP...or dOHI, as it will now be known (the sugar packets were upside down). Afterwards, we wanted to tip the waitress, because she'd been quite good-natured & patient with the foreigners wading through the menu, but we were told to pay at the counter. Difficult to leave a tip there for an individual waitress though, which raises another problem for us regarding tipping in the USA. We know the staff are on minimum wage & rely on tips to bolster their income, but sometimes the service is good, but the food is ordinary... or worse. Sometimes it's the other way - great food, but staff who don't care if you live or die - though I'm sure they'd have an opinion if you asked them. Or, like this time, you hand over your tip to someone else & hope it gets to the right, deserving hands. No issues with the food on this occasion - it was only a pancake place, how fancy do you want it to be??! Terrible coffee, as expected, but it did the job of opening my eyes that last fraction, ready to face the freeways to the big city
And they were an eye-opener alright. The traffic built steadily, the closer we got to SF & the highway became freeway & widened to 4-5 lanes full of people in much more of a hurry than we were... except for the ones who really weren't - usually lurking near the exit I wanted to take, doing about 30m/ph & a great job of blocking everyone's progress. I know everyone needs a purpose in life, but really?!? Geddoudamyway!!
Our first destination was the Marin County Civic Centre - designed by Flank Wroyd LLight & featured in one of Julia's favourite movies 'Gattaca'. 1950s-style futuristic on the outside, even featuring a shiny metallic masthead at one end, it's a blend of symmetry, lines & curves on the inside & a photographer's paradise. Even the Janitor we asked for directions is a budding photographer & made us jealous by telling us he comes in at night, at sunset, at sunrise... OK fella... enough! Parts of the building are reminiscent of FLW's other famous work, the Guggenheim Art Museum in New York City - especially the library on the top floor, with its domed ceiling. A cafeteria with fountain & garden features suggests it's a nice place to work. Lucky Public Servants!!
Since we were on a movie theme daytrip, next stop was Muir Woods, to see if any talking apes were hanging (& swinging) around. However, it seemed the rest of San Francisco had the same idea. All 3 carparks were full & even the approach roads had cars pulled over on the sides. No giant redwoods or apes for us today then... maybe Monday when everyone's back at work, or school. Hopefully
So, movie option no. 3 was Mount Davidson, the highest natural point in San Francisco & site of a memorable scene in the first Dirty Harry movie. I remember seeing the big cross at the top on the way into town from the airport 4 years ago, but we never got there. This time then. There was heavy fog rolling in over the Golden Gate Bridge, but the signs for the toll booths were clear enough. Toll? I don't remember paying a toll last time we were here...
Turns out you can't drive to the top of Mount Davidson, you park on what looks like a suburban street, after quite an incline, then walk a dirt path up to the BIG cross at the top & sweeping views of the city... when the fog clears. The park was sold to the Armenian-American community in the 1990s after complaints that a city park shouldn't have a religious symbol in it... albeit one that had been burned down 3 times in its history before they made a concrete one, then the commemorative plaque was stolen. Do you think your god is trying to tell you something... like, "Don't put a cross here, I don't like it!!"?
By now, it was time to head for our accommodation - an Air B'n'B in Oakland, across one of the larger bridges, along more freeway... unless you're me & miss the exit you need, so spend 20 minutes driving through the Port district, trying to get back on the darned bridge. At least we drove past the SFPD office, making the Dirty Harry experience more complete. Battling afternoon peak hour into Oakland, we finally turned off from all the traffic & entered the quiet streets of Lakeshore, met our Host (& 2 of 3 cats), dragged in some luggage, collapsed for a while, then thought about dinner
Lakeshore Drive is exactly that - the main road along the shore of Lake Merritt. There's a stretch that has all the restaurants, fast food,coffee shops & providores, so we found an Indian place with a menu that looked appetising - the food that is, not the menu. Not as good as the Indian we regularly have in Sydney, but either we're just spoiled, or have been lucky with our choices so far. A visit to a nearby donut shop, then a short walk along the lake's shoreline, photographing the reflected lights. The sleep bomb went off for both of us, so back to lodgings & bed
