Tuna
Wednesday 14 February 2024
Planning, planned, we had a plan. Do stuff and then pick up our hire car at 3pm. The stuff we had planned for today was to go to Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39, so not very complex. Searching at what was around Pier 39, I came across the SS Jeremiah O’Brien which was a WWI ship and museum. I showed the Albatross and he got very excited and started sprouting off stuff about how it was a Liberty class and all the things that class of boat did during the war. The end decision was, yes let’s go and see that too as it is at Pier 35.
We spent nearly 2 hours wandering around the Jerimiah and chatting to the old blokes who help keep the ship in working order. About 4 times per year, it goes out for a cruise. I am sure that there is much more that could be said here, but it is my blog day and not the Albatross’. I suspect that he might try to slip something in to this post whilst I’m not looking.
So post-boat viewing, it had started to rain, therefore our next stop was lunch on Pier 39. We had a nice lunch with views to Alcatraz, across the mooring for where the locals store their yachts and to the Golden Gate Bridge.
We wandered around the corner to Musee Mecanique, which is home to working antique coin-operated arcade games.
Our next stop was to pick up our hire car, which we booked for the next four months. We were a little early, but we’d seen and done everything we wanted, so hoped it would be ok to arrive early. All good and we had a very nice and chatty young lady helping us. All was going soooo well, until she asked us for a second (hardcopy) form of photo ID. We had our driver’s license, but we’d totally forgotten to bring our passports with us. I had a photo of them!!!??!! But that wasn’t enough, which is fair. What does that mean? I got to spend 2 hours to go back to our apartment in Oakland to get our passports and then bring them back. This then made us 2hrs late in getting on the road, and we ended up in peak hour downtown San Francisco traffic trying to get out of the city and over Bay Bridge. What should have been a 20mins non-peak drive became over an hour, with much of that time barely moving. Also, it was raining and got dark.
Once off the bridge the road goes from about 5 lanes to 50 lanes (well, that is what it felt like). I just had to keep us in the right set of 4 lanes that didn’t send us south to San Jose or north to Richmond. We managed it but then missed the turn off, but we got off two exits later. A quick stop of the side of the road to let the GPS catch up and for me to work out how to get to the supermarket. Stocked up on food for dinner tonight and some wine, lots of wine, I need wine!!!! Got home a bit after 8pm.
We asked for a RAV4 size vehicle, but have a small aircraft carrier called a Honda Pilot. It doesn't fit down the driveway so is parked in the street 2 blocks away.