Yesterday we busied ourselves at the campground with such mundane things as laundry, e-mails, planning, cleaning, etc. You know the little things of life that are squeezed in between all the adventures. One of our neighbors left and we noticed this guy vacuuming their site. We have no idea what he was vacuuming up but he was at it for at least 10 minutes.
Today we are heading into San Francisco by ferry. We got up at 6:00 and got to the ferry early enough to stand in line for boarding. We bought senior round-trip tickets which were $21.00 for the both of us. Pretty affordable. I love ferry rides, being on the water, watching the scenery from the water, just floating along. (Maybe this is the reason I chose this RV park. No, I chose it because it is one of the few in the area. There are only 2 RV parks near SF such that you feel that you’re not driving for hours to get into the city and back to your RV. We stayed at the other one on the south side the last time we were here and chose this one on the north side this year. Does it cost? Well, yeah, location, location, location. It ain’t cheap but we try to save money on other campgrounds.)
We landed at the Ferry building and bought some treats and coffee for breakfast before we journeyed down the Embarcadero. We thought we’d do some of the real tourist things today, things we did the last time we were here. But, you know we were walking along the bay in San Francisco on a bright sunny day and that’s a treat in itself. But first we’ve got to trek up to the Coit Tower, the tall white circular tower in the picture below. We chose to hike up along the Filbert steps, more than 378 steps of thigh-busting workout and down the 397 steps of Greenwich steps a block away.
We walked to the bottom of the Filbert Steps where the Levi Strauss building is. He began making pants for miners during the Gold Rush days of the 1850’s. His unique use of rivets at the seams made the pants ‘indestructible.’
To distinguish his pants he sewed a red tag inside the back pocket seam.
There is a small museum in the building which we toured. Lots of old Levis and Dockers. Here are some jeans called the Nevada Jean from 1880, before they were conserved.
FEEL THE BURN
Now the steps. One of the most intriguing quirks of San Francisco is the number of streets that turn in to stairways and the streets along those stairways that are not ‘streets’ at all, more like ‘paper streets’ like Napier Street and Darrell Place: a dotted line on a map, a walkway off a stairway with homes and people living along it. You can send a letter to addresses along Napier Street and Darrell Place and a mailman will walk up the Filbert Steps, turn right or left, walk along a walkway to the address on your letter and deposit it into the box on the door. Very cool and very unique. (Letters are one thing to get to these addresses - imagine a new grand piano or a new refrigerator. Imagine grocery shopping. How many steps are there? Oh, by the way, how would fire trucks and equipment get here? Well, the fire department has inconspicuously stored fire fighting equipment in big wooden boxes along the stairway and these blue capped fire hydrants are special high flow hydrants.)
Here’s Darrell Place - note the wooden plank walkway.
Here’s an early photo of what the steps looked like in 1880. You won’t find me climbing these. Oh, yeah, by the way - see those cliffs, along the way, as the people of Telegraph Hill were improving their environment, several guys rappelled down this cliff to plant flowers on it to hold the soil in. Climb up, rappel down - give me the flatlands of Iowa.
The steps are surrounded by a wonderful sculpted greenery, flowers like nasturtiums, fennel, blackberries, trees of cedar, magnolia, cherry and bushes which made us feel that we were hiking through a veritable garden. But it didn’t start that way. It started as a dump 30’ deep. Grace Marchant moved to the corner of Napier and Filbert in 1950 and immediately asked the city for permission to burn it. Permission granted and it took 3 days to burn it completely. Then she began the lifelong goal of building gardens along the walkway. When she died, friends of hers and now the Friends of the Garden maintain the gardens.
Gardens might make the walk beautiful and be great eye candy, but the steps themselves are still a real thigh burner. We met quite a few locals who probably do this walk daily and consider it merely a walk in the park. The lower section is a green-painted metal stairway marching up the side of the cliff. Oh, look, Gary’s way ahead of me.
Down towards the bottom we found this homeless person trying to get some sleep on a busy cement landing.
Further up are cement stairs and wooden stairs and the ‘paper streets’ of Napier and Darrell. Gee, Gary, what a great spot to take a picture - and rest, I’m telling myself. My thighs and lungs area screaming ‘rest, Nancy, rest.’
Here’s a gate to someone’s home along the steps. Their address is 17 Filbert Steps. Imagine.
Another ‘picture taking’ moment a little further along the stairs. Time to enjoy the beauty of the gardens and uniqueness of the area. Here is Napier Lane with front doors lining it.
Near the top, the steps become wooden. The guy in the picture is standing by the street sign for Napier Lane.
Finally we got to the top where we took a picture of Gary with the city below him in the morning sun.
Oh, no, it’s not the top - we’ve got a few more steps to get to Coit Tower itself. People have donated these steps and I’m sure many curse them as they climb higher.
Then up a further stairs to Coit Tower dedicated in 1933 to the Knickerbocker Engine Company #5, one of San Francisco’s volunteer firefighting companies. Lillie Hitchcock Coit, who, as a small child, loved to follow this company and eventually became their mascot. Later she funded the cost of the Tower which rises 179 feet above Telegraph Hill.
We had been up to the top of the Tower the last time we were in SF and decided not to go to the top today. We still enjoyed the 360 degree view however.
where we viewed the magnificent murals that grace the walls inside. Painted during the Great Depression by WPA artists, they conjure up images of life during that time. We especially liked the faces and expressions of the people portrayed in the murals.
These people are lined up to get their tickets to take the elevator to the top of Coit Tower. The seemed to fit in with the mural behind them.
And, then down the Greenwich steps. ah, much better going down but the gardens are still beautiful.
Back at the Embarcadero, we had to turn in to see the sea lions basking on the piers at Pier 39, a stop at Ghirardelli's, a tour of the marvelous Maritime Museum and finally a jaunt UP to Lombard Avenue to see the crookedest street in America and then through Chinatown back to the ferry. A tourist day for sure.
But that’s a story for the next blog.
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