January 24th. Jane had a business meeting to attend the second week in January in San Francisco; I had a comp ticket from United Airlines.....so I decided to take a 3 day vacation and accompany Jane. It turns out that January is a good time to visit San Francisco, the temperatures are comfortable and there aren't too many tourists. And getting around the SF Bay area using mass transit is really easy. There are so many things to do there, it was difficult to decide what sights to take in. We landed at SFO around 11:15 am and took the BART train to the Powell St. station and walked a couple of blocks to the Interco
ntinental Hotel where Jane's meeting was being held. After settling in we took a cable car ride to Ghiradelli Square and then to Pier 33 to go on an evening cruise to Alcatraz Island (see picture at left). The cruise left the dock around 5:30 pm with 301 passengers aboard and brought us around the island to get different views. After disembarking on Alcatraz, National Park Service guides conducted an orientation tour of the facility and started us on a self-guided audio tour of the island. It was interesting hearing the history of the island and the stories of the inmates daily routines and the less frequent, but more dire stories, of
notable riots and jailbreaks. Probably the most famous inmate at Alcatraz was Robert Stroud, known to all as the Birdman of Alcatraz (see picture of Stroud'd cell at right).
Of course, as we learned on the tour, Stroud was not allowed to tend birds on Alcatraz. Stroud's scientific contributions to avian health actually occurred while he was an inmate at Leavenworth (incidentally, the same penitentiary where Michael Vick currently calls home), where he was known as........the Bird Doctor of Leavenworth. I know, not as poetic as the Birdman of Alcatraz. The other interesting misconception about Stroud was that he was a kind and caring elderly gentleman, as portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the popular 1962 MGM movie. Although possessing a high IQ, I've read that Stroud more closely resembled a homicidal and suicidal maniac. Just as a sidebar, during my career in biomedical research I've come across scientists with similar personality quirks as Stroud's, but those are stories for another post. Anyway, toward the end of our time on the island a full moon was up in the sky and the lights of the San Francisco skyline made a beautiful sight.
I also walked through Golden Gate Park, San Francisco's version of New York's Central Park. The park was nice and I went to the de Young Museum of art located there. The museum had a nice collection of early (mid 19th century) American landscape paintings by artists of the Hudson River School. Jane doesn't care for these, so I was happy to be there alone to spend some quality time just absorbing the landscapes. There was also a small but nice collection of abstract expressionists like Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and a San Francisco native Richard Diebenkorn that I don't remember every having seen before who I really liked. While in that neighborhood I also visited the Haight-Ashbury district, the epicenter of the hippie movement of the 1960s. I hadn't researched what exactly I would find there but was pleasantly surprized to see a strip of about 8 blocks of really interesting shops with various street musicians performing, although I don't think there was any organized effort to entertain tourists. It reminded me of Ludlow St. in Clifton...only a lot better. I took Jane there later in the evening after her meeting ended and we made a few purchases. Jane was impressed by the quality of second-hand clothes shops we looked at. As the evening wore on, we began to sense that we'd probably stayed in the Haight too long as once the shops and boutiques closed (around 7-7:30 pm), groups of young "drifters" appeared out of nowhere and gathered in groups on the street corners. The kids didn't outright threaten us--in fact they largely ignored us, but there was a palpable feeling that we really didn't want to be here alone too much longer. There was a collective sigh of relief by us, and others waiting at the bus stop, when our bus finally rolled up to the curb so we could ride back to the hotel. Anyway, the Haight was totally cool, man.
Jane and I also ran/hiked along the Coastal Trail starting at Land's End and going underneath the Golden Gate Bridge continuing east to Ghiradelli Square. This was my favorite and most memorable part of the trip. On Tuesday, January 13th we got up early and took the MUNI #5 bus to the La Playa stop and walk a block to the ocean beach. It was still completely dark with only the full moon providing light as Jane and I walked out to the surf. From there we walked about a quater m
ile up the Great Highway, past the Cliff House and to the entrance to Coastal Trail at Land's End just above the Sutro Baths. This trail takes along the west coast with magnificent views of the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Golden Gate bridge to the North. On the way the trail leads through the exclusive Sea Cliff neighborhood (pictured at right) that is perched on the Pacific Ocean overlooking Baker Beach with a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge (see below). We started out as the sun begain to cast a reddish glow above the horizon and made it to Ghiradelli Square a couple hours later. When we back to the hotel I got to shower and rest, but Jane had to attend meetings the rest of the day. It was also nice, at this time of year when there weren't too many to
urists around to walk along the Embarcadero area (basically from pier 39 to the San Francisco Giants baseball park) looking into the various shops. On Wednesday (January 14th) I headed back to SFO for the trip home; Jane followed the next day.
ntinental Hotel where Jane's meeting was being held. After settling in we took a cable car ride to Ghiradelli Square and then to Pier 33 to go on an evening cruise to Alcatraz Island (see picture at left). The cruise left the dock around 5:30 pm with 301 passengers aboard and brought us around the island to get different views. After disembarking on Alcatraz, National Park Service guides conducted an orientation tour of the facility and started us on a self-guided audio tour of the island. It was interesting hearing the history of the island and the stories of the inmates daily routines and the less frequent, but more dire stories, of
notable riots and jailbreaks. Probably the most famous inmate at Alcatraz was Robert Stroud, known to all as the Birdman of Alcatraz (see picture of Stroud'd cell at right).Of course, as we learned on the tour, Stroud was not allowed to tend birds on Alcatraz. Stroud's scientific contributions to avian health actually occurred while he was an inmate at Leavenworth (incidentally, the same penitentiary where Michael Vick currently calls home), where he was known as........the Bird Doctor of Leavenworth. I know, not as poetic as the Birdman of Alcatraz. The other interesting misconception about Stroud was that he was a kind and caring elderly gentleman, as portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the popular 1962 MGM movie. Although possessing a high IQ, I've read that Stroud more closely resembled a homicidal and suicidal maniac. Just as a sidebar, during my career in biomedical research I've come across scientists with similar personality quirks as Stroud's, but those are stories for another post. Anyway, toward the end of our time on the island a full moon was up in the sky and the lights of the San Francisco skyline made a beautiful sight.
I also walked through Golden Gate Park, San Francisco's version of New York's Central Park. The park was nice and I went to the de Young Museum of art located there. The museum had a nice collection of early (mid 19th century) American landscape paintings by artists of the Hudson River School. Jane doesn't care for these, so I was happy to be there alone to spend some quality time just absorbing the landscapes. There was also a small but nice collection of abstract expressionists like Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and a San Francisco native Richard Diebenkorn that I don't remember every having seen before who I really liked. While in that neighborhood I also visited the Haight-Ashbury district, the epicenter of the hippie movement of the 1960s. I hadn't researched what exactly I would find there but was pleasantly surprized to see a strip of about 8 blocks of really interesting shops with various street musicians performing, although I don't think there was any organized effort to entertain tourists. It reminded me of Ludlow St. in Clifton...only a lot better. I took Jane there later in the evening after her meeting ended and we made a few purchases. Jane was impressed by the quality of second-hand clothes shops we looked at. As the evening wore on, we began to sense that we'd probably stayed in the Haight too long as once the shops and boutiques closed (around 7-7:30 pm), groups of young "drifters" appeared out of nowhere and gathered in groups on the street corners. The kids didn't outright threaten us--in fact they largely ignored us, but there was a palpable feeling that we really didn't want to be here alone too much longer. There was a collective sigh of relief by us, and others waiting at the bus stop, when our bus finally rolled up to the curb so we could ride back to the hotel. Anyway, the Haight was totally cool, man.
Jane and I also ran/hiked along the Coastal Trail starting at Land's End and going underneath the Golden Gate Bridge continuing east to Ghiradelli Square. This was my favorite and most memorable part of the trip. On Tuesday, January 13th we got up early and took the MUNI #5 bus to the La Playa stop and walk a block to the ocean beach. It was still completely dark with only the full moon providing light as Jane and I walked out to the surf. From there we walked about a quater m
ile up the Great Highway, past the Cliff House and to the entrance to Coastal Trail at Land's End just above the Sutro Baths. This trail takes along the west coast with magnificent views of the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Golden Gate bridge to the North. On the way the trail leads through the exclusive Sea Cliff neighborhood (pictured at right) that is perched on the Pacific Ocean overlooking Baker Beach with a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge (see below). We started out as the sun begain to cast a reddish glow above the horizon and made it to Ghiradelli Square a couple hours later. When we back to the hotel I got to shower and rest, but Jane had to attend meetings the rest of the day. It was also nice, at this time of year when there weren't too many to
urists around to walk along the Embarcadero area (basically from pier 39 to the San Francisco Giants baseball park) looking into the various shops. On Wednesday (January 14th) I headed back to SFO for the trip home; Jane followed the next day.
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