Headed for the Frisco Bay

To my few readers...you're welcome for this blog.  You have no idea how exhausted I am after being up for 24 hours yesterday, we had a jam-packed day today on roughly five hours of sleep, and my body thinks it's 12:30 am while I type this.  I'm tired, but I'm still blogging for you.  Okay I admit a part of me likes doing it right away anyway so I don't forget details from the day.  :-)  So here we go...

Our first stop was Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in Danville, CA.  If you don't know, Mr. O'Neill was a playwright and he lived his later years in life at this home (also where he wrote five plays at that house).  The house is situated on a beautiful chunk of land on top of a mountain overlooking a spectacular view of Diablo, CA.  There are few items in the house, and only a few are original pieces of the O'Neills, but Carlotta (Eugene's wife) had an Asian flare for decorating so they tried to bring in a few elements that may have existed in the house when they lived there.  They also had a very well-loved dog named Blemie, and Eugene wrote Blemie's last will and testament when he passed.  Blemie is also buried on the property.  Being a dog-lover myself, I read the first paragraph and decided I'd take a picture and read it by myself later when I'm not crying in front of strangers, so good luck when you read it below.

Eugene O'Neill's house is in a gated community, so you can either hike there (no idea how long that is or where you even go to start that), or you can pick up a bus in Danville to take you there.  We chose the second option.  The nice thing about this is park visitors are limited, making it one of the most quiet, peaceful parks we have ever been to!  But what's better - where the bus picks you up and drops you off is right across the street from Danville Brewing Company.  Skip this one if you don't like hops (me), but if you do like hops, you'll enjoy the beer (Steve).

The view from the backyard of the house

Sorry - these uploaded out of order and I'm too tired to deal...beer sampler at Danville

If this is too small to read, click on the picture to make it larger.  Tissues required.

Rest in peace Blemie

Masks in the foyer - not sure I'd really find them welcoming, but to each their own.

One of the few pieces of the O'Neill's - his writing desk and chair

Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site - #227 for us

After lunch at the brewery, we headed into downtown San Francisco, checked into our hotel so we could drop our luggage and then we went to the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.  We're staying at the Argonaut Hotel (very close to Ghirardelli Square), but we found out when we checked in that the Visitor Center for San Fran Maritime was in our hotel which was a nice perk!  We got our stamp and souvenirs and then explored some of the ships that were docked in Hyde Street Pier.  The Balclutha is enormous!  Honestly boats don't excite me, so we toured the Balclutha and the Eureka (a ferry boat) and called it done.  I will say this was more interesting than Salem Maritime in Massachusetts.

Balclutha

Steve by the Balclutha

Period-accurate Thermarest - we were pretty impressed!  ;-)

Golden Gate Bridge

It's a good thing I don't have a license to drive this thing

Anyone need a giant wrench?  I'm sure it's pretty lightweight.

We worked our way down to Pier 39 for dinner and to see the sea lions.  Quick note about Pier 39 - it's a lot like Ocean City, Maryland's boardwalk or the Navy Pier in Chicago - a tourist trap and a ton of people.  Other than the sea lions, you can skip it unless your idea of a fun vacation is going to Ripley's Believe It or Not and Madame Tussaud's.  The sea lions were fun to watch for a bit, but they are loud and so mean to each other!  We may have witnessed one sea lion not taking no for an answer, but I guess those rules don't always apply in nature.

A lot of sea lions!

Hey, how's it going?

The beginning of "no means no."

This one kept doing yoga poses

We ended the day with an evening tour of Alcatraz, which is part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area (#229 for us).  Insider tip - the tour itself is exactly the same as what you would get during the day.  However, the view of the San Francisco skyline at night is beautiful and for us that made it worth it (and well, it worked out better for timing in our schedule too).  This was a great tour - it starts off with a Ranger-led or volunteer-led tour about some of the buildings on the island.  Once in the main building it's an audio tour.  I read in the pamphlet before boarding the boat that the audio tour at Alcatraz has won awards because of how good it is.  Holy crap, they weren't kidding!  They carefully placed background noises into the audio to make it seem like you are right there in all the action that would have been going on in whatever part of the story was being told.  The part about the attempted escape in 1946 where some officers died and the famous escape in 1962 were extra creepy and very well done in the audio tour.

That was our day today - hope you enjoyed the blog and I hope there aren't too many mistakes since I'm so tired.  We're off to see more of Golden Gate National Recreation Area tomorrow, including a closer shot of the bridge.

Welcome to The Rock

Showers

Broadway

Me checking out solitary

Solitary Cells

The bar splitter used in the 1946 attempted escape

The utility corridor used during the 1962 escape - they used spoons to dig a crawlspace from their cell into here.  The small square of light on the floor in this picture is coming out of one of the cells.

Between the wind and the waves, it was very hard to take a nice picture of the skyline - this was the best we got.  But I promise it was really pretty!