Part III: Waymo Than You Wanted to Know - San Francisco

With our cross-country train trip now just a memory and a story, we thought we’d end our three part saga with San Francisco, whose death has been greatly exaggerated, and a brief but unique-for-us car trip.

California, specifically San Fransico, was the best part of the trip.  The train there was better, the views from Seattle rolling south were more attractive, and the city itself entertaining.  It had its share of empty storefronts and offices, as we saw everywhere;  excessive tagging, as we saw everywhere; but fewer homeless.  We were lucky on the last.  Lots more seals than at the Kansas City Zoo. Why they prefer their truly congested quarters on Pier 39 remains a mystery.  (Not really:  there’s food, no predators, and they leave every year [around June] for their sealmate-search.)

We started with a Hop-on-Hop-off tour on which we never hopped off.  This is a good way to see any city and they usually have informative narration and though you’re clearly a tourist, who cares.  It was a lovely day, until we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, brrrrr, but the views were spectacular. We opted out of the nine hour Napa wine tour Amtrak had scheduled us for. Nine hours seemed like too long for even the best wine and besides we're amateurs.

Instead, we went to the Palace of Fine Arts where we lucked into EmotionAir, “Art You Can Feel.” The Building was originally built for the1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition and is gorgeous.  What we saw was in the Balloon Museum.  We took a bunch of videos but you can also get a better idea by going to their website. You might like to see it because it was quite a different experience – and people of all ages, including us, seemed to really enjoy it.

Three videos, perhaps best enjoyed if you're slightly high.

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   About all three videos: maybe you had to be there.

Now for the grand (?) finale: Waymo, formerly known as Google Self-Driving Car Project. You probably know something about these autonomous cars but unless you’ve been to California, Miami, or Austin recently, you probably haven’t “risked your life and sanity” and tried one.  We’ve heard reactions from, “Are you crazy? to “You’ll never catch me in one of those” to “Cooool.”  Our experience was pretty anti-climatic – the Jaguar SUV was clean, seemed safe, and got us to where we were going less erratically than some Uber drivers.  It was, however, a bit surreal.  Of course, I’m still waiting for flying cars so . . .

Anyway, as Cute said, we won’t be doing such a trip for a while again, but we’re glad we did it.

Once.

P.S. Cute doesn't want me to add this because it ruins the ending, but I just loved this home's landscaping and don't want you to miss it.

Aren't you glad I added it?

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Ahem. As we mentioned -- occasionally we're adding a restaurant comment. Today we have three. If you're in Chicago, try Accanto, across the street from the Bean but not touristy. Nice Italian with excellent pasta. In San Francisco, a big surprise for me was McCormick & Kuleto's Seafood and Steaks which was in Ghiradelli Square. The Square is one of the biggest tourist areas anywhere, but this place is remarkably fab. Best shrimp ever said Cute, who is a HUGE fan of Key W est pinks. Also in S.F., my darling nephews took us to Aziza for Moroccan food which was different, inventive (I think -- never had Moroccan food so I'm probably not the best judge) but it was scrumptious. Eating adventures always!