San Francisco to Carmel May 14-19,2009

San Francisco Streetcar
May 14,2009


Robert asked me what I wanted for my birthday. His birthday is a couple of weeks before mine so we celebrate it jointly. Last year we took a car trip to St. Louis & Memphis. I told him I wanted to fly somewhere.


He found a deal on Southwest Airlines, $99 one way to San Francisco. Normal fare is $399 per person one way.


Yahoo.com Travel section has itineraries & an option to check rates on Expedia, Travelocity, Hotels.com. We decided to stay downtown for a couple of days. After that to rent a car to see outlying areas for 2 days, turn the car back in downtown & stay another day near Union Square. Parking in town is impossible & expensive even if you can find it at all. The cheapest rate is over $25 a day plus 25% city tax, making it around $50.



Hotel Serrano
405 Taylor/O'Farrell
415-885-2500


Everyone who had stayed there seemed to love the Serrano, a boutique hotel owned by Kimpton which specializes in older luxury facilities. There was a charming virtual tour. Instead of $200 we were able to book for $109 on Thursday and $124 on Friday. We liked it so much that we made reservations at another Kimpton hotel nearby, the Sir Frances Drake for the last couple of days of our visit. Of the other hotels mentioned on Yahoo Travel the Larkspur seemed like a good value when we stopped by to look around.



Larkspur Hotel
524 Sutter St
415-421-2865










It was a mistake to wait until the day before we needed it to reserve a rental car. There was a big road race on Sunday, Bay to Breakers. This was the 95th year for the 12 km race and 62,000 visitors participated in it. Enough of these runners were not locals and rented cars so that by Friday there were none available at Hertz and Alamo. Thursday the rate for rental cars was $40; it was $79 the next morning. We were able to get a Chevy Impala from the Enterprise Leasing offices in Hotel Nikko. There are extra charges if you book online or if you pick it up at one place and drop it off at another such as the airport.


222 Mason Street
415-837-1700
http://www.enterprise.com/


We purchased Protege 2 section rolling duffle bags from http://www.walmart.com/.
It is 30x14x16, weighs less than 8 lbs, has a handle & separate zippered bottom compartment for carrying shoes or wet swim suits. Item 157271579.

If you order it to be delivered to a store near you for pickup there is no shipping charge. Website indicates what most bought who purchased the same type item plus there are reviews of the item researched. It is a great bag.


We decided we needed new bags because our old ones would be too heavy when packed to make the weight of 40 lb per person & that we would each need a bag. This travel duffle was too big for hand carried luggage but if the other passengers all put a bag in the overhead compartment there won't be enough room so our bags would have to be checked after all.


Hand carried bags are limited to 10x16x24. Checked luggage can be no bigger than a total of 62 inches. Southwest Airlines allows 2 bags per customer if they weigh less than 50 lbs apiece. Any additional bags were $25 each. Many of the competitor airlines are charging for any bags you bring, carryon or checked. American Airlines charges $15 for even one bag.


An improvement since we last flew is that you can check in online 24 hours in advance & pirnt a boarding pass before ariving at the airport. If you are not checking a bag you go right to your gate.


I had custom luggage straps from England that have our names woven into the strap which makes it easy to find the bags on the lugage carousel, ordered it from one of those in flight magazines in 2002. http://www.thestrap.com/. 1-888-307-8727


It is a good idea to get a name tag with a clear pocket for your bags so you can make temporary name tags that can be changed out. You make double sided address labels with the destination address on 1 side & your home address on the other. You flip the label over when you fly home. If a thief reads your luggage tag at the airport he could rob your home at his leisure since you are going to be gone for a time. If your bag is temporarily misplaced it will be sent to your hotel.




Our flight left New Orleans at 10 am with a brief layover in Denver, arriving in San Francisco at 5 pm. Locals in the Denver airport wore shorts and sandals although it seemed cold outside to us.






There were neat displays of pioneer tools and a crazy quilt with sampler stitch book in the Denver airport.


Our options from the airport when we got to San Francisco were to take a Speedy Shuttle bus for $17 a person or the Bart transit for $5.35. We took the bus but if we had known that the Bart station was around the corner from our hotel we would have used that. Our driver gave us a $4 discount coupon to use on the trip back to the airport but it turned out to be with a rival service, not Speedy Shuttle.


Doorman John asked if we were the Schneiders, teasing us about what took so long to arrive from the ariport. You can play a hand of Black Jack with the desk clerk when you chek in. If you win you get a bottle of red or white wine. We had a score of 21 & chose the red, a Chilean carmeniere, Carmen wineries. The hotel has free wine tasting every afternoon from 5 to 6 pm in the lobby. They were doing the carmenire & a sauvignon blanc which we tried the next evening since we were too late for it that day. There were vintage board games on a table in the lobby such as Monopoly, Trouble & Sorry. The samples were generous for the tasting, a regular large glass of wine.


If you like the wine they are serving there is a large wine store next door to the hotel.


Our favorite concierge was Ed Gomez. He gave us a tour book & map on wine country. Sonoma is closest to San Francisco. Napa had more brands that I see at the stores in New Orleans. He was fond of the Russian River area.


Our room was just like the picture. The morning we checked out I opened the closet door for the first time, discovering these fuzzy $10 socks, lounge wear sets & leopard print terry robe. If you even tried on the robe they would charge you for it. They could tell if you had because there was a paper band on the inside waistband that tore when disturbed. The robe was made of scratchy material that I didn't care for. The bed had pressed sheets with high thread count that felt like Egyptian cotton. The room was quiet. We slept soundly.


They had complimentry supplies for guests so we had them bring us some toothpaste. I packed some new travel toothbrushes with built in toottpaste that we saw on the Today show but we needed the toothpaste after we used them the first time.



After unpacking we walked 2 blocks east to purchase a 3 day cable car pass at the downtown end of the street car line on Powell Street. The other end of it is on Beach Street in front of Fisherman's Wharf. We took the Powell-Hyde car to Fisherman's Wharf. We never did walk south of Powell as it borders the Tenderloin district. There is also a Powell-Mason cable car. Although they start at the same point & end at the same point Powell and Hyde are 4 blocks parallel to each other. We regretted later not purchasing a week pass for $24. One way is $5, 3 days is $18, a month costs $40.



It is important to watch where you sit on the street car when taking pictures. Make sure the sun is to your back for best results. Before noon sit on the left side of the car going to the Fisherman's Wharf (north); in the afternoon sit on the right side going toward downtown (south).






There was a herd of homeless panhandlers everywhere we went, looking for something for nothing & street musicians getting nothing for something.

sign: "why lie, it's for beer"

The funniest was a man by Pier 39 who had one string on his violin; the rest were flying in the breeze. He couldn't play but at least he wasn't singing. It sounded like he was stepping on kittens during a fire drill. Another guy wearing a Dalmation costume had 3 dogs wearing hats sitting on a park bench.
















We ate supper at Boudin's Bakery/Museum. They pronounce it "bow deen". We told the cashiers that we pronounce that word 'boo-dan' and that it is a sausage in New Oreans. They didn't believe us. A transplanted Minesotan at the museum sales counter said they have a sausage up there like boudin made with potatoes instead of rice. Supper was their clam chowder in a sour dough bread bowl, very good.






There was no restroom in Boudin's so we had to use the public facility outside. Robert told me there was a homeless drunk in the men's room trying to keep warm under the hand dryers. It was so cold that I purchased a black fleece hooded genuine San Francisco jacket for $12 from a souvenir shop near Pier 39.







harbor seals, Pier 39