Addendum to the Gold Rush years

The history of San Francisco is so fascinating, I decided to add another tidbit.  Once the gold rush started, ship crews would abandon ship and head for the hills to make their own fortunes.  At one time, there were 700 ships in the harbor of San Francisco, many abandoned.  In order to man the ships, certain unscrupulous saloon owners would spike the drinks of young men with opium, then drag them out to the ships while they were unconscious.  This practice became known as "shanghai'd"!

The Gold Rush Years in San Francisco

San Francisco has a group of volunteers, City Guides, that give free tours.  This last weekend Lee and I and a couple of friends joined one of these tours, of San Francisco during the gold rush years.  We walked several blocks in what is today the financial district, mostly landfill.  Lee, Nan and Laurin are listening attentively to the guide (although I can't tell if Lee is laughing or yawning??):

And yes, it was cold.  Although the temperature was in the 50's, the wind made it feel like the 30's.  I wore my down jacket, hat, and gloves.  As Mark Twain once said, the coldest winter he ever spent was summer in San Francisco.  Not that it is summer yet, but still, it was plenty cold.  Most of those on the tour were not dressed for the cold, but I had my Philly regalia with me.  Once I knew the forecast called for wind, I new exactly what to wear!  San Francisco can be deceiving to those who don't know her well.

Our guide was very well informed, and carried a binder of photographs and illustrations to show us:

 

The tour started at the base of the Transamerica Pyramid, completed in 1972.  When built, it was the fifth tallest building in the world, and is still the tallest in San Francisco.  It is iconic, and makes SF's skyline unique.  I imagine it must be one of the most photographed buildings in the world (outside the Taj Mahal?):

As is most of the financial district, the Transam building is constructed on landfill.  The guide told us that the first material used as landfill was redwood logs!  In deference to this, a plaza on the east side of the building is filled with redwood trees.  

Also in the plaza are tributes to Samuel Clemens / Mark Twain, who worked in the city for awhile (1864 to 1867):

The frogs in the fountain celebrate the jumping frogs of Calaveras County.  The bronze sculpture in the background is of children at play, but I like to think that at least two of the boys are Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Fin.  I could not verify this, however.  Did you know that Samuel Clemens met a Tom Sawyer in a San Francisco saloon, and chose to name his most famous character after him?

This next photo is a really cool shot.  I wouldn't have noticed it, but saw my friend taking a photo and looked up to see what it was.  From this spot, we could not see the Transam pyramid, only its reflection in the windows of a building across the street!  How is that for the coolest of the cool?  Thank you, Nan!

In the photo below, I am looking down Commercial Street towards the Ferry Building.  Commercial Street was at one time a pier, but is now all landfill.  The tour group is on the right.  You may have heard that in the event of an earthquake, fill is the worst place to be because it will shake the most.  I read that the foundation of the Transam building is a 9-foot thick concrete block.  It took 24 hours to pour the cement!

If you look really hard, you can see the Ferry Building way down at the end of Commercial Street, in the open space between the skyscrapers.  Imagine, at one time, this street being a pier:

Portsmouth Square at one time was the center of bustling dock activity, but today is in Chinatown.  The photo below is not Portsmouth Square, but is a block over.  SF's Chinatown is much larger than Philly's, consisting of a large number of city blocks.  It is very colorful.

An early map of San Francisco shows where the land ended and fill began (the shaded portion at the bottom is the fill):

When walking the streets of San Francisco, you can tell when fill ends and land begins because the streets slope up at that point.  Market Street, like Commercial Street, was once a pier for several blocks.

The tour guide spoke of the 1906 earthquake and fires that destroyed so much of San Francisco.  There is a multi-block section of buildings that were not destroyed, and still stand today.  These buildings are two to three stories high, and made primarily of brick.  The photo below gives a good idea of what San Francisco looked like before 1906.  I didn't realize so many buildings remained intact!

We are heading back to Monterey tomorrow, and will stay there a few days before moving on. 

Mount Tamalpais

My friend Nan invited me to join her on a hike on Mount Tamalpais (called Mount Tam by locals) last week.  The hike was led by a volunteer for the state park system, and it was to be a wildflower hike.  It was a little early in the season, so the wildflowers were few and far between, but the ones we saw were lovely.  The scenery and vistas, on the other hand, were fantastic.  I love the oak forests and open meadows:

Mount Tamalpais (pronounced "Ta' mal pie' us") is in Marin County, and is the highest mountain for miles around, 2571 feet at its peak. The view below is looking south along the California coastline.  Although the camera doesn't quite capture it, we could see down the coast for a hundred miles at least.

 
The green rocks ahead of the group in the photo below is serpentine rock.  It contains naturally occurring asbestos.  I found it fascinating, because when the current Academy building was first built in 1876, its exterior was faced with serpentine.  It was later changed to brick.

Here is a closer view of the serpentine rock: 

 

 
Imagine the color of the Academy building, below, in the soft green of the serpentine rock.  (Please do not use this photo for public distribution without the permission of the Academy of Natural Sciences):

Shortly after the serpentine rock outcrop, we entered a small forest with a large tree riddled with woodpecker holes:

We were told that acorn woodpeckers cache their acorns in the holes, and return occasionally to turn the acorns, so that they don't rot.  Fascinating!  Nature is so complex, and animals are intelligent in their own ways.

We went around a bend in the path, and this time had a view of the San Francisco Bay, including Tiburon (center) and Angel Island (further up and left of center):

We turned around, and had another view of the Pacific Ocean:

And to the northwest, Point Reyes:

I promised wildflowers, so here is the first.  We saw only one of these in bloom on the 3 hour hike.  It is a miniature lupine, or Lupinus bicolor.

I am not sure what the tiny pink flower below is.  I suspect it is a wild geranium or mallow.  Perhaps one of my botany friends can inform me?

We eventually walked through a heavily wooded area in a deep ravine:

Here we found the California fetid-adder's tongue, or slink-pod (Scollopus bigelovii):

And vanilla grass, or California sweet grass (Hierochloe occidentalis), native to the Bay Area:

I love the tiny forms of moss found on forest floors:

The hike leader showed us lichen with reproductive bodies (the brown leaf-like structures):

Here is a fungus the leader called "turkey tails" (for obvious reasons):

This next fungus is called witches' butter (!) or jelly fungus (Tremella mesenterica).  The hike leader said it feels like jelly, but I wasn't about to touch it.

This last one is a pretty little pink flower.   I have no idea what it is, despite my excellent "Field Guide to Wildflowers of North America" book.  

The next blog post will be on the gold rush years in San Francisco!  Stay tuned!

 

Lunch in San Francisco

Lee's favorite lunch place in San Francisco is a place called "Bill's Burgers", one block off Geary Blvd, near the Presidio.  Lee, Corinne (my sister) and I ate there when we first arrived in Petaluma.

Corinne decided Lee should also now about Moe's, another hamburger joint not too far from her place of work.  Corinne works just a block from Pier 39.  Lee and I arrived early last Friday, so decided first to see what the sea lions were up to, the ones that have claimed several docks at Pier 39.  A sign says the sea lions have now been there for 22 years.

I remember when they first showed up.  Boats had to fight for dock space, and finally gave up.  Now the sea lions "own" the space, but they attract a good number of tourists so earn their keep.  The day we arrived there weren't as many as we have seen in the past, but perhaps it has to do with time of year?

We watched long enough to notice some interesting behaviors.  First off, most of the sea lions were pretty laid back, and were content to soak in the sun without much movement.  But there were a couple of belligerent sea lions who insisted on having a full platform to themselves.  It was these few that caused all the noise, which was frequent.  Any time another sea lion encroached upon their territory, they would push them off!  They would actually pull themselves over to the usually smaller sea lion, and push it overboard.  One of these bullies went so far as to push everyone off his platform, then made his way to a full platform, and starting pushing everyone off that one!!  Ornery fellow.  There were plenty of empty platforms, so there was no sensible reason for this obnoxious behavior.  I guess sea lions are like people - some are good natured, some not so much!  Of course, as I stated, the bullies tended to be larger, so they probably felt their place in the hierarchy had to be protected.  Nonetheless, I think the biggest bully went a little too far.

By the way, sea lions look a little bit like slugs out there on those docks, if you ask me.

After the entertainment provided by the sea lions, Lee and I made our way through the crowd towards Corinne's office.  It was a gorgeous day, and the tulips and daffodils were in full bloom, in mid-February.  Unusual, even for San Francisco.  The next three shots were taken near Pier 39.

 

 

I love San Francisco.  I think it is one of the prettiest cities on the planet.  The weather and hills make it so, but also, I think, the pride that inhabitants take in their city.

We met Corinne, then walked uphill for four or five blocks, passing Washington Square and the Saints Peter and Paul Church:

   

I love the detail in the spires:

 

People were out enjoying the weather and Washington Square:

San Francisco streets:

 

 

We walked by Coit Tower, and I didn't take a photo of it.  My bad.  My sister runs up it's steps every work day morning for exercise!  Way to go, I say.

Steinbeck and Redwoods

I am currently reading Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, 1962.  Like Lee and I, he started his trip from the East Coast (Long Island), traveled west through Michigan, South Dakota, North Dakota (which we didn't), Montana, Idaho, Seattle, San Francisco, and finally to his childhood home in Monterey.  He wrote about Lewis and Clark and the Continental Divide.  He also wrote about how much the country had changed since his last trip through the same areas, 20 years prior.  Like me, he described the widened roads, the increased population, and housing developments expanding up hillsides.   What would he think today, if he were to make this same trip?

I love Steinbeck's use of language, and his description of a redwood forest is exactly what I feel.  He says with practiced craft:

"The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always.  No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree.  The feeling they produce is not transferable.  From them comes silence and awe.  It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.  They have the mystery of ferns that disappeared a million years ago into the coal of the carboniferous era.  They carry their own light and shade.  The vainest, most slap-happy and irreverent of men, in the presence of redwoods, goes under a spell of wonder and respect.  Respect - that's the word.  One feels the need to bow to unquestioned sovereigns." 

"There's a cathedral hush here.  Perhaps the thick soft bark absorbs sound and creates a silence.  The trees rise straight up to zenith; there is no horizon...  the green fernlike foliage so far up strains the sunlight to a green gold and distributes it in shafts or rather in stripes of light and shade."

"...here in the redwoods nearly the whole of daylight is a quiet time.  Birds move in the dim light or flash like sparks through the stripes of sun, but they make little sound.  Underfoot is a mattress of needles deposited for over two thousand years.  No sound of footsteps can be heard on this thick blanket.  To me there's a remote and cloistered feeling here."

"...these huge things that control the day and inhabit the night are living things and have presence, and perhaps feeling, and, somewhere in deep-down perception, perhaps communication."

Steinbeck goes on to say that redwoods go as far back as the upper Jurassic period, and fossils of redwoods date to the Cretaceous era.  These magnificent trees populated every continent and were widespread.  Then the Ice Age arrived, and glaciers wiped them out, leaving only those few that remain in a thin sliver along the West Coast. There are many redwoods, I am happy to say, between Sonoma County and the California coast.  Most are young though - there are very few old growth forests left.  If you ever find yourself in an old growth forest of redwoods, take the time to soak it in and feel the age of these magnificent beings.  Reverence naturally follows.

North of San Francisco

Hello all.  Things are slowing down a bit, so Lee and I have had time to do some more exploring this week.

I will start with some photos of the KOA campground in which we are staying.  I like it here, because we are surrounded by redwood trees (young redwood trees, that is, not old growth):

I mentioned the animals in this campground once before.  There are four peacocks - 2 male and 2 female.  I haven't been able to get too close to them for photographs, but finally got one that will have to suffice:

Teddy, a very friendly cat who loves attention, lives under the RV next to us.  Lee invited him to join us for a walk one day, and he followed until we reached the outer edges of his territory.  Then he sat and waited for us to return. 

Here he is, sitting on our doorstep, hoping we will invite him in. (Boy, would he love Munchkin, Beanie, and Barney! Tasty! Yum!)

This last week we visited two airports.  The first is a small airport, just south of the town of Sonoma, where 3/4 of the planes are antiques, all restored for flight.  I went along because the weather has been so beautiful, these excursions are an excuse to be outdoors.  Lee actually purchased his first airplane at this airport years ago, a Piper Cub (think bright yellow with a black bolt of lightening painted across the cowling).

A pilot climbed into this P40 and took off while we were there.  He did several low fly-overs.  The P40 was used in WWII, and its engine is very LOUD.

There were a few planes that would give rides, for a VERY LARGE fee!  Needless to say, we didn't do it, although Lee would like such a ride for his birthday.  (Hmmm...)

The owner of the plane below is in the process of restoring it.  There are only four of these remaining in the world today.

While Lee talked to owners, I enjoyed the scenery - the hills, clouds, and vineyards.  The Sonoma valley is so beautiful:

The second airport was in Santa Rosa, and has an aviation museum.  This particular museum has an odd assemblage of military jets, including the first one to arrive in NY airspace on 9/11.  It arrived just as the second hijacked aircraft hit the south tower of the World Trade Center (not something I care to be reminded of):

How did they arrive so quickly?

Also on display is one of the actual Tomcats used in the movie "Top Gun":

Odd, if you ask me.

On yet another day, my friend Nan and I visited China Camp State Park.  It is one of over 70 parks that will be closing this year, due to budget cuts, just before the summer season begins.  China Camp was created in the late 1800's, when 500 Chinese lived here to catch and dry small shrimp from the bay that were then packaged and sent back to China.  The camp was self-sufficient, with gardens, a barber, and school.  It was also isolated, with little opportunity for interaction with Americans.  The inhabitants continued to speak Chinese, and to practice their religious and cultural traditions.  One Chinese family still lives here today - they run a small hamburger stand during the summer months.

There was a century plant in full bloom here, in front of one of the small cabins:

In the photo below is the lower half of the century plant:

The pier has been closed to visitors:

Abalone shells serve to decorate:

A fun place for photography!!

The oven below was used to dry the shrimp, although the sun worked just as well so shrimp were often dried in outdoor trays:

The place is so picturesque, we came upon a group of artists who were painting their canvases with watercolors and oils:

How could an artist pass up such an opportunity?  Impossible!

Nan and I found a trail that led away from the camp and to more vistas:

 

To give you an idea of where these places are, I have inserted a Google map below.  China Camp is just east of San Rafael, and Petaluma is farther north.

This is enough for one post.  And to think, I thought I would run out of material!!