Furtling about with vehicles in San Francisco

Here's husband ineffectually fiddling around with his hand-me down camera in China Town, San Francisco, photographing an exciting trolley bus - interesting NOT.

We spent four nights here, a lovely city for its steeply angled streets, its characterful transport and its shops (I'd love to come here with a daughter), and stayed in this wonderful bed and breakfast, at the Golden Gate Hotel.  I loved the way their cat sat on the desk by the front door to welcome us.  Their dining room is tiny; although they must have around seven rooms on each of three floors, there are only two large round tables and one small one in the breakfast area, so you have to talk to other guests, which is lovely.  We met people who were also on holiday, from all over the States, or from Holland, or from Australia, and people who were here for conferences, or with a spouse at a conference.  In the afternoon, the hotel proprietors provide tea in this same area, and whilst not as busy as at breakfast time that gives you a break, a light fruity tea, and the most delicious cookies, something like my mother-in-law used to make.  Yummy.

And did I mention San Francisco's vehicles?  It has trolley buses, buses, tram cars and cable cars, not to mention the BART - Bay Area Rapid Transport.  We bought a 3-day ticket and travelled on most of the vehicles.  People talked to each other on these vehicles and we saw a variety of  San Franciscan life.  On one trolley bus, there were forty small boys, a class of eight-year-olds all very smartly dressed in school uniform with blazer and pressed trousers, and white shirts and ties - obviously a private school (Sacred Heart).  On  another trolley bus, wheelchairs were easily and readily accepted and stowed, in a way that I've never seen in the UK.

 I even made a sound recording of the cable car bells to share with my mother when I get back.  You can see one coming up the hill here.  I didn't fancy hanging on a pole on the outside, but even getting on and off can be a bit scary as they stop, on the tracks, right in the middle of a junction, and you have to check what traffic is around you, and that it has stopped like it's meant to!

Husband is less stressed since he bought a new camera.  Now he can effectively shoot a series of photos of the trolley buses and might use them to illustrate a piece for his model railway club magazine.  

Trains at the Grand Canyon

Last weekend we visited the Grand Canyon. Here's husband ineffectually faffing about with his camera, taking photos of a train, for goodness sake. We had half a day in that Grand Canyon park, and we spent a hour of it walking to this station, waiting to see and photo the blooming train. Was I grumpy!

We got back up to the rim (south) to glimpse the view, though husband stressed about other tourists who were off the track, near the cliff.

Poolside

Why leave home?  If you had a home like this, you'd stay.  This is my brother's back yard, with wisteria shading the veranda by the pool, and a couple of affectionate, animated shaggy hearthrugs, Wheatens, to bark at intruding birds.

Jet lagged for the first few days, we unwound here in the mornings, in the afternoon hiking in nearby mountains.  Here we've reached the top of Fletcher Canyon, a gain of height from around 6600 feet to 7700 I think.  We need to be fit.

Then we went to Yosemite with brother and sister-in-law, staying in a huge cabin - bigger than the first house I had.  Each of the four days, we went on a hike round somewhere, Nevada Falls, Glacier point, Panorama view, Vernal falls, Yosemite falls, seeing lakes, meadows and the Mist Trail.  At least the mist wasn't there that day, dampening the steps.

Rocks, like El Capitan,are enormous and even using binoculars the climbers were still tiny pinpricks.   One evening we watched the sun set over another famous rock,  Half Dome.  Another evening we came past El Capitan in the dark and could see the flashlights where the climbers were stopping for the night - it takes days to climb these rocks.  For a light hike, we thought we'd visit the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias, but it turned out to be another four mile trek up hill, as usual and we got back to the cabin hungry for our lunch and a siesta. 

On the final evening, we had a talk from the Search and Rescue Team http://www.friendsofyosar.org/.  This speaker told wonderful tales of the perils in the park, and afterwards we realised that the scary steps down by the Mist Trail were just as dangerous as we'd felt when we were negotiating them. 

Now we're home again, resting, catching up with news, blogs, photos, and audio diary, just relaxing by the pool again.