Day 12 - Opium Dens, Dancing Girls, and Rice-A-Roni

Day 12
Sonoma - San Francisco - Clovis
Miles Driven - Not Too Many
Total Time in Transit - Not Too Long
View From Hotel - Lousy Pizza Place


This morning I woke up and headed into the house to get a cup of coffee. I was greeted by Abi's young son, Tristan, who looked up at me as I entered the house and asked, "What are you still doing here?"
It's his house. It's a fair question.
"Getting coffee," I answered.
He shrugged. "Oh."

We had a wonderful breakfast with Abi, Brian, and the kids. They gave us some excellent advice about our day in San Francisco. We said our goodbyes and piled back into Towanda for some more driving.

We made the short drive into San Francisco, prepared to cram in every single tourist thing we could think of before our time was up.

We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and headed for Lombard Street, reputed to be the windiest street in the universe.

We found it. We drove down it. We were disappointed. At least, I was disappointed.

I suppose that it was a very twisty turny street, but our recent drive down Route 1 had forever changed my base-line for curvy roads.

We parked near Fisherman's Wharf, and wandered around until we found ourselves at The Musee Mecanique, an arcade/museum featuring old arcade games that have been restored and are now ready to collect your money once again.

Subtext: You Are Going To Die Soon.

Many of the machines featured small figurines that, when activated, dance and twitch about in a relatively realistic reenactment of a petit mal seizure.

It seems that tastes may have shifted over the years. Several of the machines featured brief, but horrifying depictions of people being hanged, shot, and otherwise killed.

There were also machines with enticing names like "What the Dancing Girl Does on Her Day Off". I ran out of quarters before I found that one, but I suspect that it included some risque subject matter like doing her laundry or going grocery shopping.

More Family fun! Drop in a quarter so the wee ones can watch people overdose on Opium!
Hilarity ensues!

Once I was out of quarters and hope for mankind, we headed out to find a cable car so we could ride around in search of Rice-a-Roni which, I have heard, is the San Francisco treat.

Alcatraz Selfie!

We found a compelling store that sold 3-D printed images of you. I mean, not you, specifically, person reading this blog, but you, in general, guy in an Iron Maiden shirt.

Me?

Him.

And them. Yeah. Not creepy at all. Nope. Not a bit.

I have seen enough horror movies to know, for a fact, that having a tiny hyper-realisic figurine of myself on a knick-knack shelf in my house is a very, very bad idea. You KNOW that it will come to life and kill you in the middle of the night. You just know it.

Plus, also, who does that?

Do you have company over and ask, "Hey? Want to see a tiny me?"

I'd be like, "No. There's a full-sized you standing right here in front of me."

I'm also convinced that those aren't printed figurines at all. I'm pretty sure that the whole place is just a cover for a mad scientist who created a shrink ray and wants to flaunt it. You go in, hoping for an adorably creepy souvenir and you wind up shrunk down, frozen, and standing in the display window for all eternity.

No thanks, pal.

So, we skipped the 3-D Me Mad Scientist Shop of Horrors™ and bought our tickets to ride the cable car.

Fun fact: Cable cars are actually pulled along the city by a complicated web of underground cables. The cars clamp on to them and carry tourists along the so they can buy tiny, evil replicas of themselves and watch dancing girls go grocery shopping for Rice-A-Roni at the opium den.

It's all very convenient. And fun.

The drivers like to take extended breaks so those of us waiting in line can build up a proper sense of anticipation.

Still building anticipation! Nice job, guys! 

Once the car does arrive, the go on another break so you can take the requisite 10 million pictures.

Picture number 23,471...

Cable car selfie!

Cable Car Crossroads.

I got a sweet spot right up front so when we hit parked cars, I'll get smooshed first. 

Here come the parked cars! Suck it in!

The ride was also a non-stop game of watching tourists run out into the road, stand directly in front of the oncoming train, and take a picture. It was all very exciting.

We ended up near Chinatown. Chinatown Selfie!

Brian had told us about a fortune cookie factory in Chinatown. He mentioned a side street, dark alleys, and secret passwords. We wandered around aimlessly for some time in search of the elusive Fortune Cookie Factory, but ultimately decided that wandering down dark alleys in a city we were completely unfamiliar with was not in our best interests.

If you do know about the Fortune Cookie Factory, please post the password in the comment section at the bottom of this post.

When we were ready to head back, it was a simple matter of wandering around in what we thought was the general direction we had come from until we found what we thought was the cable car stop we had alighted at.

Easy Peasy!

We saw many captivating sights on our journey. More Japanese tourists taking elaborate photos of themselves.

A dude blowing huge bubbles.

A couple young men who had attracted the attention of a LOT of police officers.

A Gene Simmons impersonator, climbing into his totally metal Kia hatchback.
At least, I assume he was only impersonating Gene Simmons.

700 years later, we did arrive at the correct stop and found a festive line of cranky tourists had arrived ahead of us.

Cable cars leave every 6 or 7 hours, it appeared, and they took no more than 3 passengers per car.

Looking at the crowd ahead of us, I calculated that we would be back at our van by 5:15.

In the year 2318.

A quick walk and a small shouting match with a local jerk later, we were back on another cable car, headed vanward.

At least, we hoped we were headed vanward.

This time, we rode inside and had a great view of the place where the driver would go, if he ever actually came back from his break.

It was interesting watching them drive. It's a very physical job. Lots of levers and pedals and yelling at tourists to get out of the way. Our driver was also a virtuoso bell ringer.

We got back to the general area where we had begun our journey and after a quick trip to a bakery to grab a loaf of sourdough,  we climbed back into the van to enjoy more driving!

Obligatory picture of the temperature.

And Tori is wearing a blanket. She needs medical help, I suspect.

We drove a few hours east, and wound up in Clovis which is pretty close to our next destination: Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks.

Tomorrow: More Big Trees and some Terrifying Cliffs of Doom.