Our Bonus Day in San Francisco

Tuesday, March 15

There were no complaints from us about the cruise delay...we were going to get another day to explore San Francisco and Norwegian Cruise Line was going to pick up the tab!

Kent & Laurel, on the other hand, had to face moving to another hotel. With check-out time at the Columbus Motor Inn at noon, they brought all of their luggage to our room before we headed out to breakfast. Doing so eliminated the need for a midday return to the hotel.

At the recommendation of Chris, the front desk clerk at the hotel, we walked a block to Pat's Cafe. The small diner served basic breakfast food that was good...but nothing exceptional. Service was on the slow side, but we weren't in any particular hurry.

Pat's Cafe

Following breakfast, we walked the short distance to Walgreen's to purchase another one-day MUNI pass. The passes are designed so that you scratch off the month and day(s) that you use the pass. Bob never got around to scratching off the date on his and not one time did anyone check. (Think it might be worth another trip to use it again?) :)

Our primary destination for the day was the Cable Car Museum, but first we decided to ride the Powel-Mason cable car line to the very end...just because! We got on at the turn-around near our hotel. We passed by the museum as we were riding, but we continued until the end in the Union Square neighborhood.

Although we wanted to ride back to the museum, everyone is required to get off the cable car at the turnaround. The line to reboard was very long, but it was a beautiful day so we didn't mind the 20 minute wait. It was interesting to look "up" and see the details on the buildings around the cable car stop.

Bob had brought some of the left-over bread from the previous night's sandwiches and fed the pigeons while we waited. 

We watched three cars come and go before we made our way to the front of the line. 

A man using an iPad with small speakers for background music was singing at the stop for tips. He was quite good...his voice was a bit Frank Sinatra-ish.

We had to pay closer attention to the stops once we got back on the cable car. We knew the Cable Car Museum was right after the turn which made it a little easier to spot. 

The museum is located in the historic Washington/Mason cable car barn and powerhouse in the Nob Hill neighborhood. The museum deck overlooks the huge engines and winding wheels that pull the cables through the streets of San Francisco. 

Downstairs is a viewing area of the large sheaves and cable line entering the building through the channel under the street. There is also a section of the museum devoted to the 1906 earthquake that devastated the city which was very interesting.

An hour was about all I could take inside the museum. The operating machinery is incredibly loud and very smelly! Staying much longer would have resulted in a major headache!

A crowded cable car stopped at the museum and we made a run for it. Feeling just like locals, we jumped on and hung off the side as it took off. The folks who were seated seemed a little irritated that we were blocking their view, but we had places to go and things to see!

Well...maybe that was stretching the truth a bit. After the museum, we really didn't have anything specific that we were wanting to see. Our plan was to just wander around, enjoy the beautiful day and have fun with our good friends. We got off of the cable car in Chinatown and decided to take Kent & Laurel to see the fortune cookie factory that we had discovered yesterday. The four almond cookies we purchased were already gone so this time we bought a larger bag. Kent bought a bag of the flat cookies that never got folded around a fortune. For the next week we ate these cookies and yet the bag seemed to stay full...a little like the Biblical story of the loaves & fishes! 

The Chinatown gate.

It is interesting to just walk around the streets of Chinatown...taking in the culture and watching the locals as they go about their daily shopping.

What a mess!

Laundry drying from balconies.

Bob really wanted to go back to the restaurant where he had sampled the dim sum the day before, but for the life of us we couldn't find it. After roaming around Chinatown for quite some time, we gave up and settled on a restaurant called Grant Place...or Grand Palace. (One name was on the take-out menu I grabbed...the other name was on the receipt...and I have seen both names referring to the same restaurant online!)

Ducks & chickens hanging in the window of the restaurant.

The guys ordered the Dim Sum Plate special for $7.95, I ordered the lunch special at $9.95 and the waiter offered to create something just for Laurel because she rarely finds anything she likes in a Chinese restaurant. Her plate of beef with lo mein noodles turned out to be huge and very tasty! My meal, which included won ton soup, egg roll, kung pao chicken, sweet & sour pork, rice, tea and a fortune cookie was a lot of food...but not as good as I had hoped.

Leaving the restaurant.

Not being close to one of the cable car lines, we used our MUNI passes on one of the regular busses to get back to the hotel. A little confusing, but we managed to figure it out. 

We saw several groups of men playing this board game in a small park. The spectators would get quite excited (and loud) as they cheered on the players. 

The Transamerica Building is at one end of Columbus Street...our hotel was at the other end. 

Since Kent & Laurel were now "homeless" the four of us hung out in our hotel room. After all of our walking, we were ready for a rest.

Later we walked back to Fisherman's Wharf hoping to watch the sun set. We couldn't find a place that gave us a good view of the sunset, but instead sat by a beach near Ghiradelli Square. Bob had brought the remains of my sourdough bread bowl from Sunday night's clam chowder and we watched as he fed the sea gulls. It was chilly by the water front and we were surprised when we realized that there were people in the water swimming laps back and forth in front of the beach!

We didn't have the energy or desire to search out some place interesting for dinner so we settled for a basic meal at Denny's. It was near by, not too expensive and served vegetables...something our diet had been lacking the last several days. 

After eating, I got the idea that we should use our MUNI passes one more time and go to Pier 27 and just "make sure" that our ship was there waiting for us to board the next day. It was a fun outing and exciting to see the ship that would be our home for the next 10 days.

Peeking through the fence at "Our" ship!

SF skyline from Pier 27.

Taking the F Line back to our hotel.

It was getting late by the time we got back to the hotel so Kent & Laurel got their luggage from our room, called an Uber car and left for their new hotel, the Cow Hollow.