Love Bus & Cable Car Ride

On Wednesday after pickle ball, Chrissy decided we should wash the coach. Most places don't allow it, but they do here, so we got that done. Both the coach and the Jeep look much better.

Then we headed to town to stock up on groceries. A sand spur put a hole in my 100 foot hose that I use to wash the coach with, so we went to Walmart to replace that. This Walmart didn't have groceries, so we had to go to a food store. The selections are quite different than we're used to. Instead of Mexican food, we saw Halal (Muslim) and Asian aisles.
I'd say this area is 30% Asian.

We tried to book a tour or Alcatraz. They have 4 different ones. One is a Day Tour of course, but they have a Behind the Scenes, Night Tour and a Bay Discovery Tour. Well, every single one of them was booked up, completely full, until the first opening of 21 August. So we got a picture.

For Thursday we decided we'd ride the cable car and get a bus tour. We got to Fisherman's Wharf where one of the cable car lines begins.
There are 3 different cable car lines.

The visitor's center was closed.

We had booked the bus tour for 1400, 2pm, so while we were standing in a long line to board the cable car, we started calculating how long it would be waiting, then the ride, then waiting again on the other end to re-board and realized we had not allocated nearly enough time. They said the ride was 20 minutes each way, but we waited in line for an hour on each end. So we decided to have lunch at a local restaurant, then do the bus tour and cable car after.
I had their spaghetti and meatballs and Chrissy had their meatball panini. I know it's a seafood place, but their meatballs and pasta were fresh made in house, and delicious! I didn't see any local fish mongers like you do in Maine, so I was a bit suspicious on how special their fish would be.

After lunch we looked into the souvenir shop next door. Magnets? Yeah, they had a few.

Got a magnet and a squashed penny for my collection.

We wore pants and two shirts and we were still cold. It only got to 60 degrees and the cold wind off the ocean made it feel like 30. Brrr

The bus tour was called the "Love Bus" Tour, but most people called it the "Hippie Bus". What a blast to ride in a 1972 all original VW bus. I'd never seen one that was automatic transmission. The driver took us all around the City while telling us a lot about the history, geology, and climate of this area. He's a 15 year resident living in his pickup camper. He says that's the only way he can afford to live here.

We went into the Haight Ashbury District where the time is always 4:20.

The China Town district here is bigger than New York.

They have a Gay district, Vietnamese District, Italian District and a few more I don't remember.

We got to go down Fremont Street and I have a video, but I know no one likes videos. I have a cable car video too.

We saw the Toni Bennett Statue.

This is the bus on Fremont Street, an extremely curvy and steep street.

This is a cross section of the cable that suspends the Golden Gate Bridge.

After the fun bus tour, we waited in line for the cable car ride up and down the extremely steep streets.

That's Alcatraz in the background.

I stood on the standing rail taking the video to get the real experience.

Today we pull up jacks and head North.