California Vacation - Day 05 (San Francisco)

 

26 years ago, I scattered my late wife's ashes in a spot under the Golden Gate Bridge, right behind Fort Point.  Due to 9/11, this spot is no longer accessible to the public.  But I try to get as close as possible each time I visit this city.  Today's visit would be special, as I don't see myself coming back to this city for a while.

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When I got up this morning, I planned to drop by Fort Point and then visit the Swan Oyster Depot for lunch.  My plans were to visit the fort first, and then take Muni (SF's Mass Transit system) to the Oyster Depot for lunch.  These plans were blown to pieces early in the day, when a lady asked if she could share my table at the buffet.

This lady and I start chatting, and it was as if we had been related to each other in a prior life.  We chatted from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm without stopping.  She never picked up on the fact that I am not a cisgender woman, as I code shifted my conversation to refer to my life with my late wife as if she were my late husband.  We talked about many of the things that only women could experience, such as "Boob Sweat" and struggles with one's bra.  We talked about our late spouses.  And we talked about what we liked about the opposite sex.  (I can translate well in a pinch.)  So, when her friend called her, I took this as a good opportunity to make my way to Fort Point via trolley car and bus.

Getting to Fort Point from Pier 27 is relatively easy.  One takes the historic trolley to Fisherman's Wharf, then walks a couple of blocks to catch the 28 bus to the Golden Gate Bridge.  From there, it's a walk of 0.8 miles (all downhill) to the shoreline and then to the Fort.  Once I paid my respects to my late wife (for which this might be the last time), I decided to make it back to the bus station for my return to the ship.  What was an "easy" 0.8 mile downhill walk was an arduous 200 foot uphill trek back (over the same 0.8 miles) to the bus stop.  By the time I reached the bus stop, I felt that I needed a shower.  Only one problem - it would have to be quick, because I had a 5:00 pm reservation at the ship's steakhouse and I would likely be a few minutes late.

When I arrived at the ship, I proceeded to my room, then stripped, showered, dressed (in fresh clothing), and reapplied my makeup before going downstairs to dine.  I chose both the sea scallops (with salmon roe) and the French Onion Soup for appetizers before trying the veal chop.  Although the veal chop was good for what it was, I found that it was not the cut of veal that I like to eat because of the texture of the meat.  (Give me a good queen cut of prime rib from Peter Luger any day....)  However, I don't have any regrets in trying this cut of veal, as I try to try out new things to eat whenever I can.

After dinner, I realized that I needed to rest, and I fell out for an hour or so.  Shortly after waking up for a while, I exchanged a series of messages with RQS before calling it an early night.

California Vacation 2023 - San Francisco (Day Two)

 

The first thing I wanted to do today was to take a trip to Fort Point, and pay my respects to my late wife. (This is where I scattered her ashes.) Unfortunately, the fort was closed, and I scuttled this plan for the day. Instead, we were off to the Swan Oyster Depot to have a good seafood meal.


After breakfast, we bought another day pass on the Muni, and walked over to the trolley stop to start our journey. Instead of the expected trolley car, a bus was servicing the line. This would be the theme for today’s travel - substitution. Even if we wanted to take a cable car for part of today’s rides, it looked like San Francisco’s cable car network wasn’t running, as I saw some buses running on the California Street cable car line as substitutes for the cable cars. The bus we took to the Oyster Depot was rerouted to avoid the area where the president was in town for a conference.

We made it to the Oyster Depot by 12:30, and ended up waiting 45 minutes to be seated. With only 18 seats in the place, a long wait is always possible here. But once seated and fed, it was all worth the effort to make it here. YUM! I had the smoked salmon with shrimp salad, while RQS had the mixed plate of clams and oysters. Both of us had clam chowder. It was well worth the $120 spent on this meal.

 

Then, it was back to the ship. Both of us knew that our stay in “Fog City” was too short, and that we’d want to visit this city again. As the ship left the bay, RQS and I got some interesting pictures from our balcony. It was too bad I couldn’t have book-ended stills and videos of our arrival in the San Francisco bay with our leaving the bay. But it was nice to get views of both Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge on our way to our next stop, San Diego.

This was not yet the end of our day. It was Italian Night in the main dining room, and our waiter made sure that we had extra dishes for each course. Yum! Although we didn’t eat everything in front of us, we had a good sampler of what the restaurant had to offer. And this was a nice touch that we didn’t experience on our other cruises. Did I eat too much? For the day, yes. But not at this meal. Everything was served in “human sized” portions. So if I had been hungry, I’d have no problem ordering a second (or third) place of something to enjoy.


Once done with dinner, it was off to the lounge, where we saw our two friends from the other night. This time, Sue was more a part of the conversation, and we had a couple of hours of good chatting before it was time to go to bed for the night.