San Francisco on our feet.

On the eve of our depature from SFO, it's time to record our activity of the last two days.
Monday morning we decided to visit the Fisherman's Wharf area. Now normal people hop on the cable car in Powell St. and "hang out" all the way up and down the steep hills to the waterfront. Not the Hunters - we felt like seeing a little more of the route by walking. Well for those of you have ever been to SFO (or saw the movie "Bullet") you will now know beyond all reasonable doubt that WE ARE MAD. However it was actually quite pleasant even considering the 90 fahrenheight (30C) temperature. The main thing was that we took our time and had several rests along the way. Spent a very pleasant 2-3 hours including lunch at Pier 39 and The Cannery etc. before returning to the Cable Car turnaround for a more relaxing return trip to downtown Powell St.
After standing in line for 3/4 hour waiting for our turn to board the cable car - we realised they were no longer running. So we decided to walk again figuring that the return would only be the same degree of difficulty as the earlier walk. WRONG - the chosen route was very much steeper in sections, at one point we walked backwards up the hill to ease the pain. We eventually reached the summit of SFO from where it appeared to be downhill all the way - even walked the zig zag Lombard Street (downhill). Our route took us past the Cable Car Barn and Powerhouse where you can watch the sheaves that power the cable cars and learn all about its history. Upon entering we quickly saw the reason for the stoppage of one of the cable car lines - a team of maintenance men were frantically working on splicing a section of new steel cable into a 30 odd feet of badly frayed cable. Can you believe it, they actually splice the large diameter twisted steel cable.
Todays trivia... Gail's pedometer recorded 12.5 kilometres for the day.
Tuesday dawned even warmer so we are definately not planning another day of walking. Visited the Westfield Centre in downtown SFO where they have a 5 level circular elevator. Then caught the MUNI train to the CALTRAIN station where we changed and went to Palo Alto - 53 kilometres from SFO, and home of not only Stanford University, but also Steve Fargie when he is in residence. We had a most interesting walk around the Stanford area then through the downtown Palo Alto shopping precinct and the private homes and mansions along University Avenue. As has become the norm we took a heap of digital photos during our tripping around - most of which will trigger memorable moments throughout the coming years.
We only registered 9 km today on the pedometer.(The non-walking day...)
Tomorrow (Wed) we hit the road in our Avis rental Chevrolet Cobalt south-bound for Ventura via the coastal Highway 1.
Kevin & Gail.
www.alaska-2006.blogspot.com

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