San Francisco scenes

Today Melissa and I decided to do something usually reserved for tourists:
ride the cablecars in San Francisco and take pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge.
We had a couple other diversions too, as you’ll notice.

If you want to ride an uncrowded cablecar, take the California Street line.
It starts at the foot of Market Street, stops at Nob Hill and Chinatown, and
continues uphill to Van Ness Avenue, where you grab another car and ride it back
down.

Melissa gets settled in for the ride at the foot of California Street.

The cab drivers have to squeeze in between the cablecars and the curb. This
guy was about 12 inches from my knees when he passed.

Fares are 3 bucks for a one-way ticket, or 9 bucks for an all-day pass. We
opted for the latter. You hop on and the conductor comes along and collects
the fare.

The view out the back, looking down California Street. It’s a lot steeper than
it looks.

Here’s the Powell Street cablecar. It’s almost always packed to the gills because
it picks up a load of passengers down the hill at Fisherman’s Wharf. Good
luck getting on … we tried three times and they all were full.

It was sunny, breezy and cool — perfect sweater/jacket weather.

Here comes another one up the street.

This one does a better job of conveying how steep the street is. It’s no vacation
trying to walk these streets.

That’s the Transamerica Pyramid in the background.

The sun’s a blur at Grace Cathedral, high atop Nob Hill.

It’s an impressive edifice by any measure.

The hazards of getting your camera too close to the window.

After we tired of the cablecars, we stopped by sports bar where somebody in
a silly suit was handing out free baseballs.

Inside, a more sanely clad guy gave us these balls. They’re part of a contest
in which the winner gets to throw out the first pitch at a San Francisco Giants
game.