San Francisco for churchyard boondockers - part 1

Some time ago we received an email from one of our readers. We exchanged a few emails and we found out that he lives in San Francisco. And as we were planning to head there pretty soon we used our recently gained assertiveness and we asked him if he had a backyard, a parking spot on a street or at least an idea where we could park for a few nights. He didn’t have any place to offer but he promised he would ask around. And that’s how we set up our base camp for San Francisco at a parking lot of Polish church in San Jose (once again we’d like to thank Piotrek and Ania for idea and for the support and father Andrzej for hospitality).

Polish church in San Jose is in Mexican neighborhood. But unlike Polish southside in Chicago, where Mexican wave flooded over old Polish streets, in San Jose it was all about the price of land. It was simply the cheapest there. We didn’t mind. Sometimes it would get loud in the evening, we would hear roosters in the morning, there were carts with tacos for a dollar on the parking lots around. We heard it gets unpleasant sometimes but we enjoyed staying there. Soon it’ll become a religious center, as just next door an Hindu cultural center is being built. It’ll get crowded and it’ll become a real multi-culti melting pot.

At the parking lot of Polish church we spent a whole week, although San Francisco has so much to offer that even a month would not be enough. Below we will write about what we managed to see in such a short time.

Golden Gate Bridge - a symbol of San Francisco. Up close it’s really Orange Vermilion Gate Bridge. Very often it’s hidden in fog but we got to see it in a beautiful sunshine. We saw it from northern side - there is a large parking lot and a view point. But that’s not the best place to look at the bridge from. If you look around while standing on the bridge you’ll see a better view point.

We took a stroll on the bridge but we didn’t walk the whole thing (more or less 2 miles each way), we walked just passed the first pylon from the north. It was loud, it was windy, there were lots of bikers, including the local ones not caring too much for pedestrians. Maciek liked it, maybe it reminded him of the bridge he used to walk on while going to preschool back in Warsaw. It’s worth a walk, at least to touch the bridge and see at Frisco skyline. And, as we mentioned before, to see a great view point.

To get there you have to go a bit further by 101, take the first exit, go under the highway on “1”(yes, this one) and then go up. There are a few view points. You can skip the first one, but the view at the bridge and the skyline from the further ones, especially two last ones is amazing. There is also an unfinished fort with place prepared for anti-aicraft and artillery guns for defense system of San Francisco. It’s unfinished because pace of arms race was so crazy that before the system was finished it was obvious that it was outdated and useless. Nothing new, in Pensacola there were annotations by a few planes that at the time they were ready for mass production better versions were almost completed or new technologies were introduced that made them look silly...

Practical note: going north is for free, going back you have to pay toll. Since going around is a long drive probably you will pay anyway.

Chinatown. The biggest surprise about Chinatown for us was the fact that it’s populated by…Chinese. Who would expect… We thought there would be just tourists taking pictures, not a living ethnic neighborhood with signs in Chinese only, laundry hanging out the windows, real Chinese cuisine.

We got all you can eat dim sum for less than 6 USD per person. It wasn’t easy to understand each other, the food was so-so, but with this price we won’t complain. Unfortunately for dessert we got a parking ticket. We were looking for parking space for half an hour. Once we found it and we put two quarters into the meter we found out the meter was broken. We reported it and we were informed that we can stay there although we can expect getting a ticket, and then we can appeal. That’s what we did.. If the appeal doesn’t work it’ll be the most expensive dim sum ever...

We spent half a day in Golden Gate Park. We read on internet that it’s the biggest city park in the world, and that there is the only building in the world with a living roof. We know at least two in Warsaw… Biggest or not, we won’t get into high-school discussions. For sure it’s big. There’s a free parking by the street in entire park, but before 6 pm in more popular parts of the park there is 2-hour limit, in less popular - 4-hour.

For 7 USD (per adult) we went to Japanese Tea Garden. It was nice and pretty, lots of Japanese tourists (probably the same story as with Americans in McDonald’s everywhere in the world, but just to make things clear we were quite happy when we found Lech Walesa street and we stopped to take some pictures, so no judging here). There were also DeYoung Museum, with facade reminding a bit the walls of Wilson Square metro station in Warsaw, and California Academy of Sciences. We skipped the first one mostly cause we didn’’t feel like indoors activities (even though they had Girl with a Pearl Earing visiting, unfortunately original one, not Scarlett Johansson), the second one we skipped because of the price. Instead we spent a lot of time at the playground, Maciek loved it. There is a great playground in the park and at least a short stop is a must when being there with kids.

We left the car in the park and we went to see the city. First we walked Haight Ashbury, hippie neighborhood. Leaving the park in this direction can be a cultural shock. Just a few yards from the playground and the park turns into home of homeless. It looks like that for a few blocks into the city. You have to look under your feet not to step for example on a guy laying across the pavement and laughing at the sun. Maciek seemed to like the approach. There are lots of vintage shops, coffee places, pubs and shops with medical marijuana – the smoke is filling the air like Harvey Milk’s ghost.

From there we walked to Japantown. It’s smaller than Chinatown (reflecting the reality) but just as fascinating. We had a great dinner in Japanese restaurant, where Japanese tourists had a problem communicating with Japanese-looking but not Japanese-speaking waiter. They did get some generational connection after all: guests asked about the song that was just playing, the waiter said he had no idea (it was this Aerosmith’s song from Armagedon).

Afterwards we headed to Japanese shopping mall. There was a restaurant there where Keanu Reeves himself ate once, which was celebrated in a little altar in front of it. Well, maybe next time. There were also stores with super-designer gadgets next to stores with traditional souvenirs, chopstics, tea sets and swords. The picture was completed by Hello Kitty store.

We drove by winding Lombard Street, although we had to wait in a line first. It seems to be a really popular spot. Interesting experience. It’s good to first burn your brakes in Death Valley and remember it entering Lombard Street just to make your adrenaline level higher.

Substitute photo, ones from Lombard street weren't so nice

It was a few busy days and there was more to come. To be continued...

Blue, west of the one

Who of our estimate readers (other than American readers) heard about Grand Canyon? Everyone. How about Death Valley? Most of you. And who heard about Big Sur? Not many, unless you’ve been here, you’d like to go there or you read about the area. Even those who read Jack Kerouc were probably so fed up after “On the road” that they didn’t read to his "Big Sur".

We didn’t know too much either. And we gave up “On the road" half way through. All we knew about Big Sur is that there’s a line about it in Red Hot Chilli Peppers "Road Trippin’", but unless you see it with your own eyes you don’t really know what they mean by "Blue, you sit so pretty west of the 1".

And what they mean is the blue ocean that spreads west from SR 1. The highway goes for over 1000 km through entire California, starting in Los Angeles area. Its most beautiful part is Big Sur area from San Luis Obispo to Carmel. We entered it a little bit north from San Luis Obispo. If we went more south it might’ve been too much of a challenge for our jeep.

We have to say it’s one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever seen. It was 100 miles of uplifted journey, touching the ocean on one side and beautiful green mountains on the other. At some point we thought the grass on the hills looked like suede, which was actually close to true, as it was green fabric preventing landslides. Anyhow it was beautiful experience. The road winds up to 300 feet over the ocean so close to the rim of a sheer cliff that it makes you dizzy (going south is even more scary). Pacific Ocean hits dramatically on rocks and the shore is covered by a thin fog.. And that intense blue up to the horizon. It’s pure magic.

  

We read many discussions on internet on whether to go or not on this part of the „1” by any kind of RV. Road is described there as winding, dangerous and killing for a regular car towing something. But when it comes to how difficult it is let’s just say it’s just as difficult as an average Polish county road. The biggest problem for Americans seems to be that it has just one (!!!) lane each way. Ok, it is sometimes narrow, but not that narrow that two RVs would have any problems passing each other. If you tow a trailer you are slower than the rest of the traffic but there are pullouts every few miles so you can let the faster cars through. And that’s what we did. Besides, half of the road we drove just before sunset, so it was really empty. We could just enjoy the sun disappearing behind the horizon.

There was one disadvantage of driving with a trailer. Most of the attractions on the route are not accessible for cars with trailers. Even towns at the end of this most beautiful part of the “1”, like Carmel for example are not a good idea. We tried it but narrow and steep streets scared us off very quickly.

And what is accessible with a trailer? There is Hearst Castle, which is a residence built by William Hearst (Aviator guy). We skipped it, unfortunately, as we had a bad timing. It’s worth to see different parks like Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Not for trailers, so we had to skip it. We stopped for a coffee at Nepethe. Not the cheapest place but the views were well worth it. One of the guests at the next table said he saw a whale but we didn’t.

We drove through often photographed Bixby Bridge standing 240 feet over water, built in 1930s. There is of course a view point. Some people standing there mistook us by the Russians. Which is an irony as there was a couple of guys there looking like New York hipsters with huge photo cameras and rental C-class, and they were real Russians. That’s what Russians look like these days!

We slept under the sky full of stars at free campsite (or actually at the pull-out of a back Nacimento-Fergusson road) not far north from San Simeon. Beautiful spot on the steep hill with an ocean view. It was so steep we didn’t even try to level the trailer, but still it was a wonderful night. For those who are ready to pay to have a level ground there is Kirk Creek Campground nearby. It’s said to be one of 10 most beautiful campgrounds in the USA and is not very expensive (a little bit over 20 USD).

We left „1” in Monterey. From there we went to ”regular” highway - 101 to quickly get to San Francisco, or, to be more precise, to San Jose, where we had a „reservation” at a parking lot of Polish church. Monterey used to be a capital of Spanish and Mexican California. It has a few interesting buildings from the end of 18th and beginning of 19th century. We stopped there mostly for late lunch and skipped sightseeing.

There is a port with a pier with lots of restaurants. Most of them give free clam chowder samples, so if you like it and you’re looking for free food you can just walk back and forth. We’re not really into seafood so we sat down in a restaurant at the end of a pier for a fish. It was ok but nothing special.

There were also sea lions (or maybe seals?) on a platform just by the pier. It was fun to look at them for a while. They were discussing some sea lion issues, making sea lion pyramids and just playing in the water. But we had to leave them after and head to San Jose, which was our base camp for the next few days.