Today was a lot cooler and Karl the fog even made an appearance. We set off a bit later today at about 9am, I had to rearrange today after I discovered that Fort Point only opens Friday to Sunday, so this is how today panned out. There is a free express shuttle bus that runs from just down the road from where we are staying called Presidio Go that runs out the city by the less know route and only stops about 4 times to pick up only until you get to the Presidio which use to be a large army barracks until a few years ago but is now part of the Golden Gate National Park.
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| Yoda Fountain |
Firstly we stopped off at the Yoda Fountain at Lucas film as it was May the 4th then walk up to the new visitors center that has just opened and has lots of interactive screens that show you the history and wildlife of the area and even how they have managed to reintroduce coyotes to the park and what to do if you come across one. I think they have about 14 breeding pairs there now but they have been spotted around the Telegraph Hill area and that's a large residential area. So after a quick coffee in the cafe we went round to the National Cemetery which is military cemetery that overlooks The Bay and has been used in many movies over the years, this is the first time I've ever been to one of these war cemeteries and the amount of graves here is staggering, a very somber experience. We then headed back down
to the transit cafe where all the buses stop and caught the #43 to California Ave for the SF fire museum that only opens from 1pm to 4pm Thursday to Sunday and didn't get chance to go there on previous visits as this
the museum is staffed by volunteers it might not be open, they do recommend that you call first before going but we took a chance and it was open. It's a really interesting place inside and tells the story of the early years of the fire department from horse-drawn pumps, steam-powered pumps and early (gas) petrol power pumps, they even offered us a guided tour to explain the various points but we prefer to go round at our own speed. This is not a big museum by any standard and your only going to be I there about 30 minutes or so but it free. They do ask for a donation of 5 bucks but you can give anything you like or nothing but these people are giving up their time probably after they finish a shift so we gave the suggested donation and bought a $10 badge. From there it was a short walk up the road to catch the bus to next place on the list but after waiting for about 20 minutes we decided to have a change of plan so crossed the road and caught the #38 back into the city, the plan was now that we would
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| Crocker Galleria |
go to Jimmy John's in the Crocker Galleria have one of their lovely sub sandwiches back at the hotel and have a sit down for a bit before heading out for the evening otherwise this was going to be a long day. About 5.30 we set off out again and got the F Line Streetcar to the Exploratorium, we had planned on doing this next Thursday evening as this is the only night that they open and it's an adult only night so there are no screaming kids in there. The Exploratorium is a hands-on science museum with lots of fun stuff to play with. It's only open from 6 to 10pm tonight but is half price to go in at $15 each and was well
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| Exploratorium |
worth the money, plus as it was May the 4th as in "May the 4th be with you" it was a Star Wars theme night with a band in fancydress playing and R2D2 was even rolling around. We came out of there about 9.30pm and had a stroll back along the Embarcadero to the ferry plaza then got the bus to Walgreens to get a bite to eat, by now it was about 10.30pm and we were both absolutely knackered. We were back at the hotel by about 10.45 and not use to being out that late. Time for a beer I think.
