Category: Places to see!

San Francisco has lots to see and do. Take a trip with me.

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49 Mile Drive: Stop One, Civic Center

It was a bit of a cold day for us, but we decided to travel down to the main library last Sunday. Little did I realize until we were inside the library that this was the first stop on the 49 Mile Drive, so it was time to pull out the camera.

Big bonus, it was on a Sunday and we could park on the street for free. Big bummer, the homeless people outnumbered the bubblegum stuck to the sidewalks. One thing at least when you’re walking with a kid in a stroller is that homeless people have an understanding, don’t ask for money or be aggressive. I’ve seen this happen many times. I’ll even let my wife walk ahead a few feet and they’ll never ask her for money or a cigarette or anything else, but when I go buy they’re all over me.

Stop one, it’s nice in spite of the homeless people, but there isn’t much else to say about it. Here’s a few of the sites to see there:

  1. City Hall: Rather stately looking after you’ve finished going through security and you get lots of echos which you’ll have to keep your kids from screaming just hear their scream bounce back at them sending security guards running at you with one hand on their guns.
  2. Bill Graham Civic Auditorium: I’ve spent many a night there, even roadied a few shows for bands there. It’s a great place for live acts that has a small arena feel, but you can actually make out the people in the band from the top seats. Acoustics aren’t bad for this place either. Side note: The SpaceCon III Star Trek Convention was held here in 1976 and the Warriors used to play basketball here for a short time.
  3. Asian Art Museum: I can’t really say much about it because I haven’t been here since it moved from the DeYoung Museum. It was never very crowded when it was there and it sounds like they’re still having trouble attracting people, but if you’re into Asian art, it’s a cool place to visit.
  4. Davies Symphony Hall: Ah the place to see and be seen. It was kind of surreal the last time I was there as I saw Huey Lewis and Chris Isaak talking to Willie Brown. This place is serious symphony and you’ll never find an electric guitar in this place.
  5. War Memorial Opera House: It seems to be the home of the San Francisco Ballet and nothing else. It looked locked up tighter than Fort Knox when we walked by.
  6. SF Main Library: What can I say other than what I’ve said before. This place is gorgeous inside, it has a cafe and rotating exhibits as well as free wi-fi. Well, there are the homeless people who wander in to use the restrooms or to get out of the cold until someone throws them out which they usually don’t, but they’ve got a HUGE selection of books, audio, video and free computers to use if you’re on a low income and can’t afford one for yourself.

[mappress mapid=”7″]And that ends it for step one. It turns out that the 49 mile drive has had it’s locations changed over the years with the changing of landmarks over the years. I’m working off the current list for this trip. In the photo library bellow there are a few pics from our trip and that same gallery will be update along the way. Next stop, Cathedral Hill!

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The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown Down!

I was issued a challenge today for the site from my friend Mike Gunn. He suggested that I travel the 49 mile scenic drive throughout San Francisco and add some pics and video clips. I like the idea because it will give me lots to talk about and at least 49 different posts so that should keep things going for quite a while. I accept the challenge!

For those of you who aren’t aware of this it was started on September 14, 1938 in anticipation of the 1939 World’s Fair that coincided with the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge which was good because otherwise you would have had to take a ferry to get to the fair. Not a bad idea, unless you’ve ever been out on the bay in bad weather. Even I can get seasick from a cruise when the winds kick up as you get close to South Beach harbor.

Rex May designed the sign that you might still see around in a few places many of which have been stolen by vandals even though a reproduction of the sign and be purchased at the City Hall Gift Shop. The route starts at Hayes and Van Ness and travels all around the city to show off to tourists how great the city is ending at former fairgrounds for the 1939 World’s Fair on Treasure Island. I’m not sure how long it would take to drive 49 miles within San Francisco, but something tells me it’s going to take more than an hour. Next week I’ll start things off and I like the idea because I haven’t been to Treasure Island in almost 10 years.

If you click on the picture you’ll see a map of the route courtesy of Google. Thanks for the idea Mike!

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SF Public Library Trains for Christmas

I’ve never been a big model train buff, but I was pretty surprised years ago when I was taken to the Randall Museum and ushered down into it’s bowels to a room that was set up and run by the local model train club. This was impressive. It was about a 20’x40′ room with a huge town and mountain range built with the little train cars moving all around it. THAT was impressive.

My wife was making a big deal over the train display they had out in front of the Fisher Children’s Center at the mail library so I figured, let’s take a trip down and see it. Now I have to admit I used to have a problem with libraries as it always seemed the books were too out of date for what I needed. I’d go in looking for a computer book and could only find “How to use your Texas Instruments calculator”. Well things have changed and I’m always surprised at all the new stuff I find at the main library. Today we saw a little museum like piece on “Eats around San Francisco”. It was pretty much old menus which was find with me because I got a few laughs from some of the restaurants that were shown that have now gone.

[mappress mapid=”9″]But let’s get back to the train exhibit. Well, I’ll have to say I was a little disappointed. It was about 10’x4′. Not exactly as sizable as I expected. I always think big so I figured it would be this huge impressive thing. Well, not exactly, but it was still fun. It was fun enough for me to pull out my camera and capture a little video for all of you to see in all it’s 720p glory. It was fun at least putting the video together even though I really do need to get an OWLE Bubo to hold my iPhone 4 so there’s less shaking and better picture quality [anyone want to get me a late Christmas gift?] Well here’s the video and I hope you like it. Not all of the trains were working, but at least my daughter got a kick out of seeing Thomas the Train going round and round, but I don’t think she knows about the Polar Express. Hogwarts seemed to have a problem once we arrived and was stopped dead, but at least it was stopped dead in front and not in the back so the little Harry Potter’s could have something to scream about. Oh and last thing: $3 meter parking, library was free.

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1906 Earthquake Shacks

Recently, I’ve been giving it to my friends back east or in Europe who are complaining about the snow that while it’s a chilly 45°-55° here in San Francisco we still have sun [usually]. Their usual response is, “I’ll take the snow over earthquakes any day.”

I’ve heard lots of people say that in the past and in reality we haven’t had a quake that’s done any damage in San Francisco since 1989. 21 years and no big quakes. We’ve had a few little ones here and there, but those just give you a little startle.

Now the 1906 quake is one I’m glad I missed. It was rated at between 7.8-9.0 magnitude and left over half of San Francisco homeless. Worse thing is that it wasn’t the earthquake that did the most damage, but the fires that started afterwards that caused the most damage. The quake itself ruptured the San Andrea fault for 290 miles. By comparison, the 1989 Loma Prieta ruptured only 25 miles. Damage by todays standards from the 1906 quake would have put the total loss at over $8 Billion dollars.

So what exactly did the city do to help out the homeless people? They built refugee camps with housing like the one in the picture. This house is an actual 1906 earthquake shack that has been restored. Quite unlike most other museums [this one is at the Randall Museum] you can walk inside of it.

What we have here was a very quickly put together 10’x10′ one room house with no running water or toilet. The walls were built of 1/2″ x 4″ wood planks that are probably much better quality than we have today, but still, there’s no insulation, no caulking to block out drafts. It must have been pretty miserable to live in, but a lot better than living outside in the fog. Back then you could purchase one for $50 on a rent to lease option. Rental was between $2-$15. This one had a sign that said $2/month rent so I can only assume that the $15/month were a bit bigger. Some of these are still being found today. I was at recovery challenge out by the beach that Woody LaBounty of the Western Neighborhoods Project put together. Apparently, someone had one in their backyard and if Woody and his people could come and get it, they could restore it.

[mappress mapid=”10″]The only other one I’ve seen is at the San Francisco Zoo which you can also walk into, but that one is unfurnished. You can tell when you first walk in that life was simpler back then what with your house consisting of a bed, a table, a pot-bellied stove and a sewing machine. At least that’s what this one was furnished with. Most of these houses were set up in Golden Gate Park at the time as it was probably the most stable land in San Francisco to hold them. If you want to feel a little bit happier about where you live come check this out. Oh and by the way, the Randall Museum is free.

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Daly City Party Playhouse

You’ll notice Daly City keeps popping up in my blog. That’s because I consider it the San Francisco Annex. If you want a nice chain store like Home Depot, Target or Walmart you have to go outside SF and that usually means the peninsula or in this case, Daly City. Today was another one of those, “What to we do with our daughter?” kind of days. We decided to go the Party Playhouse with a friend of our daughter’s so they could have fun together.

First off, this place is AWESOME! I think I’m saying that because they encourage the parents to explore the large structure with their kids. For $6 you get an hour, but they don’t have party playhouse police coming to tell you that you have to leave or pay up again after an hour. There’s lots to climb around in as the structure from my estimate is about 40′ long by 20′ wide by 20′ high.

20′ high? Who’d let their kid climb to that kind of height? Well, that’s where this was very well thought out. If your kid falls inside they have at most 1.5′ to fall and it’s all padded. REALLY padded. There’s ball pits, big balls, things that swing into you ropes to crawl across the padded rooms and slides, slides, slides. It has just about everything a kid could want and if they get tired inside they have a few games like skee-ball and cars and trucks to ride for the smaller ones. For older kids they have an arcade that’s open on weekends. Out in front there are comfy couches for the adults to sit and watch or read one of the numerous magazines or newspapers they have. There’s also an adult getaway room with a pool table, foosball and Tulley’s coffee available. All in all it was a blast.

Now that our daughter has used up her energy we had to feed her and so we took a trip to In-N-Out burger with a stop by [mappress mapid=”12″]Krispy Kreme for some doughnuts to take home. What I always love about Krispy Kreme is when you order a dozen doughnuts they always ask, “For here or to go?” I don’t know about you, but I have never sat down and eaten a dozen doughnuts at one time, but thanks for asking. While this wasn’t the healthiest trip out for us I’m sure my daughter has burned off all the calories she got from the 100% trans-fat free junk food she had for lunch.

Total cost for 3 people: Just over $20. Yet another deal. Check out the party playhouse even if you have to borrow someone’s kid to go there.

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The Doelger Center

Since our daughter has two weeks off from pre-school we have to find something to do with her so she doesn’t build up enough energy to explode. So this morning we decided to take her to the California Academy of Sciences. Unfortunately we left a little before noon and the garage was full which means that the Academy would be full as well. Since our little one doesn’t like big crowds too much we made a change in plans.

Now normally I try to focus on San Francisco, but the Doelger Center is almost San Francisco because it’s right over the boarder into Daly City right before you get the Westlake. The Doelger Center is open on Wednesdays from 12pm-2pm and Fridays from 10am-2pm, but this was the last day it would be open before the end of the year.

If you have kids, this is a great place. For only $4 you can stay as long as you like. They have a bouncy house which for the $4 is worth it alone, but they also have lots of other soft play mats and climbing structures for the kids to play with as well as tricycles, slides, hula hoops and a few other things. While the bouncy house is always there some of the slides and climbing structures change depending on whims of the two guys from Daly City Park and Rec who run the place, but they always do a good job.

On my first outing here I was a little horrified to see regulation basketballs for the kids to play with [recommended ages are 5 and under] and then I picked one up and realized it was half flat. All the balls aren’t fully inflated. So I had to do a test. I had the friend I had taken my daughter with hit me in the face with the ball. It hurt, sort of, but I’ve been hit in the head with a fully inflated basketball and that hurt worse.

[mappress mapid=”14″]What I really like about this place is that it encourages the kids to think about how to play. They can use all the “stuff” to create their own play space instead of here’s your playground and this is how you’re supposed to play. One day I had about 6 kids laying down on a giant parachute as I pulled them around the gym. Luckily there was another Dad who helped out and took over for me so we could switch off without having a heart attack. You have your regular groups of Moms there and they all are very friendly and don’t seem to mind if your kids “interact” [that’s the term I like to use for crashing into each other]. They understand that kids are going to be kids. My daughter reached into one woman’s bag of tortilla chips from Chipotle one day to help herself and she laughed it off.

One of the fun things too about the Doelger Center is that around Halloween and Christmas they do a little extra. Halloween has a costumed parade of all the kids and ends with a bag of candy for each of them. Christmas, and this was my first experience of it here, they had a Santa giving out toys to all the kids. I did notice a bit of an Irish brogue as he talked and realized that he was probably a friend of the “Irish Mom’s Club” which is a group of Irish women who tend to sit together and talk while their kids wreak havoc on the place. I tried to keep our daughter away from Santa figuring that he only had enough toys for the kids in that group, but one of the Mom’s told me that they had enough presents for all the kids. Good thinking. You wouldn’t want to have your kid meet Santa only to be told he forgot her present.

Afterwards our daughter decided it was time to visit Chipotle for lunch. We drove down the block to Westlake and split a steak burrito bowl and chips and guacamole between the three of us [after all the burrito bowl gives you more than half your days calories]. Total cost for this outing? under $15. Now that’s a deal to take advantage of.

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Chick-N-Coop

OMG! Chick-N-Coop is one place that just screams Sunset district. It’s been around for ages and you can tell by looking at the outside. It’s run by a Greek family and when you walk in you’re greeted by a large burly man with a loud laugh who takes your order.

So what do you get to order? Food, basic food. Roast beef, meatloaf, 1/2 chicken, pork chops, lamb. It’s all basic food and a HUGE amount of it. We got the roast beef that came with mashed potatoes and gravy and a side salad. We get it to go because unless you’re an NFL linebacker or professional food eating contestant, you won’t finish it.

There are two types of people you typically see here: Cops from the Taraval police station and elderly people. I can understand why both go there. The police need a big hearty meal and the elderly don’t, but they can have food for three days on what they give you. We typically split a roast beef order and get dinner and lunch out of it for around $13.

[mappress mapid=”16″]So what’s the food like? It’s good, not 3 star Michelin good, but it’s good food that fills you up, doesn’t suck and you’ll get at least another meal out of it if you’re like most people. They’re located at 1055 Taraval street just down from 19th avenue and they’re cash only so keep that in mind. There’s a Bank of America down the street if you need to grab some cash.

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Musee Mechanique

In my last post I talked about the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. Well, there’s a kind of cooler, in a different way place just across the street that you’d miss if you weren’t looking for it. This is the Musee Mechanique. It is an odd mix of things that used to underneath the Cliff House before it’s remodeling so the Musee moved down to Pier 45 at the wharf.

Oh, did I mention it’s free to get in? What the Musee Mechanique is, is a collection of old sideshow arcade entertainment products mixed in with todays regular video arcade games with a few pinball machines mixed in. Most of these will cost you about 50¢ each, but you’ll find that people don’t mind letting you look when they drop a couple of quarters in a machine.

[mappress mapid=”17″]Some of these date back to the 1915 Pan-Pacific exposition and the owner, Ed Zelinsky has been working hard to keep these all running in tip top condition. I couldn’t find an opening date, but it looks like Ed probably opened the place in 1946. The one thing I didn’t get a picture of was the history Laffing Sal of the old Playland at the beach. She’s a big fat creepy kind of clown who has a maniacal laugh and she’s still right inside the front door just like she was at the Cliff House.

So below is a gallery of some of the pics I was able to get the other day. All the old photo galleries are under the photo gallery tab at the top of the page.

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Wax Museum @ Fisherman’s Wharf

Normally, I like to be really proud of the things in San Francisco. This is one of the times I’m not sure what to say. I love wax museums, but after visiting Madame Tussaud’s in London and Las Vegas all others pale by comparison. That being said, this is still a kind of fun place to go. I love the wharf for it’s kitschiness. There’s lots of schlock for sale and every other shop on Jefferson Street sells either candy, t-shirts, cameras or antiques. I don’t understand the antiques part, but in between these little oddities there’s a bit of fun.

Today, thanks to SFKids.org, we got a free pass for the family to the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. What totally surprised me was that while it had been awhile since I’d been there it seemed much smaller than it used to be. Thomas Lee Fong purchased the property in 1962 and opened the wax museum in 1963. It wasn’t much, just the wax figures against black backgrounds. The place kept growing over the years and there was a big ruckus in the 80’s when they made a likeness of Michael Jackson who came out for the unveiling event. I remember Michael was jumping around on top of the cars parked next to the museum and it was all caught on tape for the home audiences to gawk in shock at.

In 2000 they did a complete remodel and now the entire ground floor is the wax museum. It used to occupy all four floors, but now it’s only one floor and that somehow makes it bigger. They have done some decent work in setting up the dioramas with the wax figures, but other than that the likenesses aren’t exactly top shelf. Our daughter enjoyed the whole show of walking around and looking at people who aren’t moving. I’m sure if they had a wax Elmo she would have exploded, but they didn’t. I do remember the Chamber of Horrors being a lot more gruesome than it is today. During the remodel they moved all the Chamber of Horrors stuff down the street to have a cavalcade of the grotesque for the tourists. We’re talking a rack that you could twist the wheels and listen to the wax “victim” scream in agony or the Iron Maiden complete with a body dripping blood as well a quite a few impalings. You don’t have to worry about that anymore. Just remember that we walked slowly and took lots of pictures [encouraged by the owners], but I think we did the entire museum in under 15 minutes.

The SFKids.org website was a great resource for us here as if we had to pay it would have cost us over $50 total for the museum, parking and lunch. In the end we got away with only having to spend about $20. Check out the gallery below, but be warned it’s very dark inside so the photos are a little blurry and grainy.

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La Boulange in Cole Valley

While I tend to like French food, its not something I seek out on a daily basis. My friend Clint who’s running off to Costa Rica decided we should get together for lunch before he left and he suggested La Boulange on Cole. I have to say that when I walked it I looked at the menu for about 30 seconds and my eyes were drawn to the display case.

This place was filled with sweet and savory delights that I didn’t expect. I’ve been to French restaurants before and they’ve been of two types. 1. Crappy food in great sauces and 2. Plain simple food. This was #2 with a bit of the saucy flair added. As I was browsing the display case I noticed the croque monsieur which is sort a French way of saying ham and cheese sandwich.  That’s simplifying things a bit, but essentially it’s a ham and cheese sandwich on white bread with a little bit of bechamel sauce instead of mayonaise [which was originally called sauce lyonnaise in French] then they take it one step further and add more cheese on top and broil it until the cheese melts.

Croque Monsieur at La Boulange

While my arteries hurt while eating it I opted for the side green salad with a balsamic vinagrette. Not exactly the most French, but I’ll give them some slack as everyone had lots of piercing and tattoos here. On my first bite I just felt my eyes roll back in my head. This was awesome food and the sandwich, salad and a soda cost me less than $10. For the quality of the food, I have to say the price didn’t hurt and I wasn’t hungry after I finished. As a matter of fact I didn’t have that after Thanksgiving feeling where I wanted to lay down and have a nap.

My friend Clint did one of the cheapest things I could think of at the time, but understood why afterwards. They have a dessert section and he purchased ONE cookie. The cookie was the size of an oreo at best and was coated in the creamy fondant like coating. He broke it in half and handed me a piece. As we walked out the door I popped it into my mouth and after swallowing it two words burst out of my mouth…”OH SHIT!” This was one of the best tasting cookies I think I’ve ever had.

[mappress mapid=”19″]I want to take my wife back now so she can give it a try. She tends to be a bit selective on foods, but I know there’ll be something here she’ll like. Next time we’ll have to try the chocolate ganache dessert.