Where We Went

Editor's Note: This is the second-to-last scheduled post from our trip to San Francisco, of the places we went. If I can find the time I will add the final post, How We Got There.

Giants Stadium: While I was at my conference, Dear Husband visited the home of the San Francisco Giants. It was something of an anti-pilgrimage, as the stadium is practically a shrine to Willie Mays (1931-). One of the reasons Mr. Mays is known as such a great baseball player is "The Catch," an awesome over-the-shoulder catch of a long fly ball during Game 1 of the 1954 World Series between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians at the Polo Grounds in NYC. The Giants ended up sweeping the heavily favored Indians. An Indians' fan by birth, DH holds a minor grudge against Mr. Mays. Here is a statue of the moment. (The Giants moved to 'Frisco in 1958.)


Cable Car Museum: DH also visited the barn and powerhouse for the famous historic cable cars. He got to read about their history and see the wheels that turn the cables that run underneath the streets. The cable cars have pincers underneath to grab onto the cable and be pulled along.

To get there, he had to hike up Nob Hill (right). That's the view from the top!





Muir Woods: This was on DH's Bucket List. We did a 4.8-mile hike in 2.25 hours along the Ocean View --> Sun Trail --> Dipsea Trail. DH took lots of pictures, and I brought alone our new What Redwoods Know to read some poems as we sat on a wooden bridge over a rivulet while the tall trees swayed and whispered in the wind high above us. Yes, it really was like that. However, there wasn't much of an ocean view, as they're doing some wildfire prevention work, and the sun trail was no joke: I came back with a lightly burned face. But we got plenty of tramping in, with occasional wildlife sightings, especially "leezards." (I think that pronunciation comes from a cartoon we watched as kids, but for the life of me I cannot remember which one.)





O.co Stadium/Oakland Coliseum: We have been trying to see a Giants game since we got married and wanted to honeymoon in SF, but it was not to be. So this time we took the BART across the Bay to the Coliseum, now known as O.co Stadium. Because it was Jackie Robinson Day, all the players wore a 42 on their uniforms and no names. That's okay: we wouldn't have known any of the Athletics or Astros players anyway. You can see the dad sitting in front of us was wearing 42 also.

Even these die-hard baseball fans couldn't stick it out in the cold for teams we don't
follow; we left around the 6th inning.