Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Today’s blog has to cover a lot of ground; we haven’t added anything for the past four days.  Saturday we spent in the Redwoods area of Northern California; on Sunday we drove to just north of San Francisco; on Monday we went into San Francisco, and on Tuesday we moved to Pleasanton.

When we stopped at Petaluma, north of San Francisco,  I noticed something new to me; TV stations in Chinese.  When I stop and think about it, it’s not surprising with the huge oriental population in the Bay area.  On Tuesday when we stopped in Pleasanton, we had more Spanish and Oriental stations than English speaking.

On Monday, we spent most of the day in San Francisco.  We went to the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park.  Most of the park is floating in the bay.  There are a dozen historic ships that are on exhibit.  Several of the ships are available to board and view.  The ones we boarded were very well-restored and interesting.

We had lunch at one of the many restaurants on Fisherman's Wharf.  We took a boat tour of the Bay area and went under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz.  On our way back to the motor home, we stopped at Muir Woods National Monument, just north of the bridge.

Today we drove about 75 miles to Pleasanton to visit Connie’s cousin, Ricki.

 

In Northern California, the redwood parks are shared between the NPS and the state.  The National Park Service didn’t get into the act until the Johnson  administration when part of the redwood area was legislated as Redwood National Park in 1968.  Lady Bird came out to dedicate the park.  These two photos are of a 6 mile road we took through the redwoods.  These are some of the tallest trees in the world.

To the left is the light house at Crescent City.  To the right is a shot into the forest.  It was quite foggy.

There are a few areas where the elk herds are unaware of the public.

These are photos of the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. 

The photo to the left is the pier as it was before the Golden Gate Bridge was built.  The old cars are displayed inside the ferry and these cars are the property of the NPS.  Nice cars!

This was the view from our table at lunch.  The Golden Gate Bridge is in the background.

You can make a wish when you cross under the bridge for the first time.  Never pass up an opportunity to be a millionaire.

Muir Woods NM and one of the larger redwoods dedicated to Clifford Pinchot.  William Kent bought 611 acres of old growth redwoods and  in 1907, he gave 295 acres to the federal government.  In 1908, Teddy Roosevelt declared it a national monument.  This was the first national monument created from land donated to the federal government. 

On Tuesday, we had lunch at P.F. Chang’s with Connie’s cousin, Ricki.

Ricki took us to see another of Connie’s 1st cousins, Vern Kaplan. Would you believe, Connie and Vern had NEVER met! They spent an interesting afternoon discussing their Jewish parents and their immigration from Poland.