Tea and Touristing in San Francisco

My first big adventure in San Francisco was a tea party for the birthday girl. She likes to dress in Lolita style fashions and opened her closet to me so I could dress for the tea party too.

Based on my preference for a more somber and mature look, she selected a dress from Alice and the Pirates, Teatime Nostalgia, and I selected this accessory for my hat. 

Here we are at the tea party. We had a wonderful time feasting on salad, sandwiches, fruit, scones, and tea. And of course, the birthday girl got a tiny cake with a candle. I can see in this photo that she's taller than me. Dang!

One day I walked down to the Hyde Street Pier where the ferry boats disembarked for Sausalito and Berkeley before the bridges were built. See the "Hwy 101" sign on the right?

Today the pier is home to San Francisco's Maritime Museum, and historic ships like the Balclutha, C. A. Thayer, Eureka, Alma, and Hercules are berthed there.

I also visited the Cable Car Museum. The cable cars in San Francisco are literally the only cable operated transportation system in the world! At some point the city wanted to eliminate them, but thank goodness the fine citizens of San Francisco raised a stink and these three lines were restored. Who could imagine San Francisco without cable cars?

At the "barn" I learned that the entire system is powered by these huge pulleys. See the names of the lines on that beam above the pulleys? Each line has miles of cable running under the streets, but they all lead back to this building where the cars are stored at night, and maintenance is done.

If a cable shows signs of wear, the cable maintenance team splices on a new piece of cable, runs the new cable out through the line, and splices it back into a new loop in about five hours. This work is done in the middle of the night so the line is up and running the next day to the delight of the tourists and locals.

Here you can see a huge pulley guiding the cable out to the California Street line. For perspective, those are 55 gallon drums on the floor.

I also rode Caltrain to Palo Alto to visit Machine Zone where my daughter works. It was interesting to see the modern, open workspace where the magic of game creation happens.

All too soon my time in San Francisco was over and I crept to SFO in the wee hours of the morning and boarded my flight to Newark. Eventually I landed in Portland, Maine and the Captain picked me up. It was good to be "home" again because really, home is where the boat is, isn't it?