I Left My Heart...

In preparation for our San Francisco outing on Sunday, I looked around online Saturday night to find adventures and interesting activities. We definitely wanted to go to Alcatraz and check out the Fisherman’s Wharf for souvenirs and, of course, seafood. When I checked the alcatrazcruises.com website, we’d missed the window for an actual tour of the island. The earliest available would be Tuesday morning at 9:30 – cutting it a bit close for our afternoon departure from the Oakland Airport.

Plan B. The website takes into consideration those unprepared travelers who wait too late to book The Tour and dutifully linked me to the Guardian of the Gates boat tour. The Next Best Thing. And not nearly as expensive or time-consuming. So I made reservations for the 3 of us on the 3:30 GG Tour. Good deal. Except that to pick up our tickets at the Will Call window, Dear would have to present a government-issued photo ID and the first page of the electronic receipt printed out from our home computer.

Um. We’re not at home and don’t carry a printer around with us. So, I called the front desk of the Best Western where we’re currently hanging our hats. The lady said no problem, just come to the lobby after 9 a.m. and the on-duty desk clerk will print what I needed.

My next challenge was figuring out the ride on the BART train into SanFran so we wouldn’t have to fight the Bay Area traffic with the rental car. Online again for schedules, routes, fares, and where the heck is the nearest station. It only took about 15 minutes to find all the info I needed to plan our round trip and decide which schedule we wanted to keep. We decided to go for the 11:15 inbound train. That would give us plenty of time to get into the city, have lunch somewhere and pick up our GG cruise tickets from Will Call at Pier 33 before our 3:30 tour.

We got a good night’s sleep (no noisy neighbors) and were ready to go at 10 a.m. Sunday morning. I went down to the BW lobby to access my email receipt and have the on-duty desk clerk print out the required receipt for our cruise tickets. That’s when the fiasco began.

ODD clerk (no pun intended, that’s just how the acronym worked) said in her Middle-Eastern-accented English that although the customer computer in the lobby was connected to a printer, the printer was not working. She would have to see if we could print to the manager’s office printer. Okaaaay. Let’s do that.

She made a phone call to (I assume) the manager, who informed her that the printer in the manager’s office was – alas! – not working. Hmmm, wonder how they printed out our BW lodging receipt the night before…but I didn’t ask any questions. Other than did she know where there was a Kinko’s or some similar copy services establishment nearby. It was now 10:15 and our 11:15 BART train appointment was fast approaching.

ODD clerk gave me some sketchy directions to the nearest copy place and we started driving. We didn’t see anything resembling a photocopier at the intersection where she directed us. Grrr. Drove around blindly for a couple of minutes, then stopped in at a Starbucks – they’re usually coherent, right?
The guy behind the counter told me that they didn’t have any printer availability, but there was a Kinko’s just up the road a bit. Better directions this time and off we went again. Found the FedEx/Kinko’s just as the Starbucks guy directed. It didn’t open until noon.

Back in the car to see what else we could find close by. We finally found the Copy Mat place that ODD clerk originally told us about and I went inside. Dear and #3 were doing the driving-around-the-block maneuver so we wouldn’t waste more time trying to park and walk. Yes, they could print what I needed, but the lady who does that only works Monday through Friday from 9-5. Well, that’s about as useful as…fill in your own blank.

Back in the car and more driving. Just a couple of blocks away, we found a Pacific Copy place that looked new and modern. Dear parked the car this time and we went together to accomplish The Mission. A cleverly placed sign on the front door informed us that Pacific Copy was closed on Sunday in observance of the Independence Day holiday. HEY! That was FRIDAY!!!

By this time, we were getting desperate and had already missed the 11:15 BART train opportunity. Dear went in to a little restaurant (Buffalo Bill’s Brewery) and asked if they had a printer we could use. (I told you we were getting desperate.) They didn’t, but the girls in there were very sympathetic and gave us written directions to the closest Office Depot and Best Buy. We thanked them and got back into the car to head toward one of those places.

At this point, Dear said, “It’s already 11:15. Let’s just have lunch here, go to Kinko’s when it opens at noon and print out the receipt, and catch a later BART train into the city.” The inbound train that we needed runs about every 18 minutes and as long as we were at the Will Call window by 3:00, we’d be okay.

Lunch at Buffalo Bill’s Brewery was wonderful. It was a very unique little pub-like place where they brew their own beer. Rachael Ray would definitely have sampled some of the home brew, and I was even tempted by their Orange Blossom Cream special. But no. I’ve gone more than half a century without having a beer, so why mess up my record now? We had sodas with our meals: I had a turkey/avocado sandwich and a cup of cheesy clam chowder; Dear and #3 had the Buffalo Bill burger and fries.

I took a couple of pictures of the brewing vats in the back of the place, as well as one of the signs hanging overhead with someone’s name on it. Good luck pronouncing it. I can’t even begin to try.

It was 12:15 when we finished lunch and went back to the Kinko’s to print our GG receipt. Kinko’s was OPEN!!! Beautiful sight. Naturally, there was someone already using the public computer, but we were second in line. We waited for about 10 minutes and the people finally finished their online whatever and we FINALLY accomplished our Printing Mission. We left Kinko’s at 12:45 with receipt in hand and headed for the B Street BART station.

We made the 1:10 BART train – after a helpful BART employee took pity on us and pointed us in the right direction with the necessary transfers and instructions for our return trip later in the day. Very confusing and I left without the paper he wrote it all down on (DUH), but we made it into San Francisco by 2:00. YAAAAY! Just like we had good sense.

BART deposited us at the Embarcadero Station at Market and Spear Streets. We mentally took note of our surroundings so we could get back there without leaving a trail of breadcrumbs or pebbles. And started walking to Pier 33 and our GG boat tour.

We walked a couple of blocks and came to Pier 1 and decided that there must be more than one pier at each entrance. Wrong. We walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked some more and the Pier 33 sign was like water to thirsty travelers when we finally saw it. I took some pictures along the walk, but mostly just kept my head up and eyes forward looking toward the Pier 33 prize.

It was 2:40 when we actually presented our precious printed receipt (and government-issued photo ID) and had our GG tour tickets in hand. In time and with time to spare! So we walked some more – down to the entrance of Pier 39 just to tantalize ourselves for after the boat tour.

They finally started loading our boat, The Escape, and we were set and ready for our cruise around San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz Island and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Lots of Kodak moments, as you will see. There are photos of the SF skyline, famous landmarks Telegraph Hill and the TransAmerica Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge in fog and sunshine, and Alcatraz Island from all angles. I won’t explain them here because I captioned them in myspace for clarification.

It was colder than Billy Blue (my mother’s favorite metaphor) out on the bay. We had wondered why everyone had jackets or sweaters with them while standing in line on the pier in the 90-degree sunshine. It definitely weren’t that warm on that boat. In fact, it was bloody cold! All the SF promo says that the fog comes in from the ocean every day and drops the air temps in the afternoon. We can definitely testify to that now.

The tour was very informative and entertaining – especially the voice-overs by the former inmates of Alcatraz. We were back at the pier by 5:30, bought our souvenir photo, and headed for Pier 39 and dinner.

Before we got to the restaurant, though, we had to pass a LOT of cool shops. We stopped in at a couple of them just to spend more money, which I’m sure they greatly appreciated. But Dear and I came out with warm fleecy SF jackets and #3 bought a SF hoodie. More stuff for the rest of the fam, too. Then on to Neptune’s Palace for dinner.

I didn’t realize until I looked at the photos that I had taken pictures of Neptune’s Palace restaurant from our GG tour boat, and then we ended up eating there. Significance in the small things again. Our server looked like Taye Diggs (Rent, Private Practice) and was very touchy-feely with my menu. After the initial ‘awkward,’ we ordered our meals and Taye asked if we’d like some sparkling water? I said no, just flat, thanks, thinking we’d get good ol’ tap water.

Think again. The bottle of “flat” Sole (so-lay) mineral water with “no minerals added” (huh?) cost us $9.25. Taye was a clever one, eh? We drank every blasted drop of that bottle of water.

The food was very good. I had Dungeness crab pasta, Dear had sautéed seafood pasta with salmon/scallops/shrimp, and #3 had Dungeness crab cakes with angel hair pasta. (Taye had told us that it was crab season and we should definitely get something with crab in it.) No dessert because we were going to hit one of the shops on the way back up the Wharf to satisfy our sweet tooth.

We didn’t get anything sweet after all, but we tried to ride a streetcar back to the BART station so we wouldn’t have to do that endless walk again. The streetcar fare was $1.50 per person – exact change required – so Dear ducked into another souvenir shop and bought a little SF magnet so we would have the right change for the ride.

We waited at the streetcar stop with an assortment of interesting (read odd) folks. And waited. And waited. Finally a streetcar came along that was already packed in like sardines and didn’t even bother stopping at our corner. Just as well, none of the 20 of us waiting would have fit anyway. We waited a few minutes more and then decided to make the journey back to BART on foot again.

It didn’t seem as long getting back to the Embarcadero BART station, but it was nearly dark when we finally got there. Interesting that we only saw one other streetcar going our way on that whole journey. We’d probably still be waiting had we actually waited for one.

Walking the streets of San Francisco at night was definitely NOT appealing to us Waxahachians (Hachie-ites?), so we were very glad when we got to familiar BART territory and caught the 9:10 train back out to Hayward. We were in the rental car by 10:00 and at the BW lodge by 10:30.

It was a long day, but lots of fun. We got some really good photos and saw familiar sights. Interesting that we never did hear Tony singing the song, but it was running through my head all day long. I’d like to come back some time and actually stay in the city by the bay for more sights and adventures.

ttfn