We have added a few more pics to our picasa web album for this trip.
The beginning of the week was interesting at the Candlestick RV Park. It is located literally right across the road from Candlestick Park (hence the obvious name) where the San Francisco 49rs NFL football team play their home games. Monday was such a game and was also the nationwide Monday Night Football Game broadcast on ESPN.
A couple of spots over from us were two very large RVs. These were apparently the "real fans". The folks for one RV had rented two spots and by Sunday night had decked the place out with more 49rs paraphenalia than you can shake many sticks at. The "social event" had begun.
When we left early Monday morning, to take Kris to the "first day of class" for her haute couture sewing class, the RV park was still mostly empty. The RV park management guy warned us about timing our return to the park. Since the game started at 6:00 (or thereabouts) he said either get back by 4:00 or wait until about 7:30-8:00 by which time there would be little traffic getting into the stadium BUT by a little after 8:00 they change all the traffic lanes to go away from the area so there is no returning to the RV park until around 10:00 when they reverse the lanes again. So we planned accordingly!
WELL...approaching the Candlestick area, we could here the crowd noise from the stadium a good 10 blocks or more away. The HUGE parking lots were full and the RV Park was absolutely crammed. Apparently the RV Park management take full advantage of their location and sell every possible nook and cranny to game day parkers. One of the big RV fan guys had apparently rented the spot next to ours. Earlier in the day he had asked if we minded if his son parked "a bit" into our spot as it was going to be tight. TIGHT, TIGHT he said... hah... at least they did leave us enough room to squeeze our Pathfinder in front of our trailer.
So the game ends shortly after. What a madhouse as the early leavers are rushing to their cars to avoid the after game exodus crush. It was like a swarm of ants going through the RV park. Relatively soon afterwards the car exiting, from the RV park, calmed down and the hoards of folks who were actually staying the night began the serious business of tailgate cookouts and general discussions of what happened to "their team". We chatted and drank a bit with folks around us. Mostly very avid fans who needed to drown their sorrows as the 49rs lost on the last play of the game against last years champions, the New Orlean Saints. Much to our surpise the tailgating mayhem actually died down by about 11:00 and all was pretty well quiet well before midnight.
We were likely the first ones up the next day. What a sight. We can honestly say we have never seen so much garbage and other post game, tailgating detritus strewn across the parking lots around the stadium. It looks like the organizers of these things look to the strength of the wind and the seagulls to get rid of as much stuff as possible. Maybe the wind blows a lot of it to Oakland, who knows? This picture is from Thursday morning, a full 2+ days after the game ended. A lot of the Trash across the parking lots has blown into the fences but still enough around to get many seagulls excited.
Finally later on Thursday we saw crews starting to clean up the mess. By late Saturday it was pretty well all cleaned up.
Anyway, enough of the 49rs...
All in all, the Candlestick RV park is a convenient place to stay. It is on the serious windy side so difficult to cook outside. Our decision to not have inside cooking facilities meant we either ate out or brought back pre-made deli type meals.
Turns out the Giants played a day game, at AT&T Park, on Sunday so we decided to spend the afternoon at the ball park. Had great seats and once again our home team mojo was out in force as the Giants beat the Milwaukee Brewers 9-2. There were a couple of home runs including a grand slam for the Giants. That always gets the crowd up on their feet. We recalled the game we saw in Dodger Stadium on our last trip in June when a fellow with the "best hair" sat a few rows in front of us. Well, it appears we might be a magnet for other folks with cool hair... (notice the guy with the whack of dreadlocks and the guy with the huge spikes)... No wonder the musical "Hair" was set in SF.
For the rest of the week, other than in the early morning and evenings we went our own ways...
Brian
It was mostly a week of doing domestic duties like laundry and other cleaning around the trailer. Not much to do but the laundry at the RV park was incredibly slow so easy to spend a full morning just doing a load of towels. The rest of the time was spent doing some sight seeing and checking out a variety of neat stores in light industrial areas of the city. These are not your average retail stores! Lots of cool stuff. Usually after dropping Kris off at Apparal Arts I'd go back to the RV park and do the clean up stuff then head off to one of several favorite coffee shops where I'd sit and read my Kindle for awhile before going off on a mini adventure. I only ate at In-N-Out Burgers twice and Johnny Rockets Diner once. A couple of times I drove down to the Marina or over by the Cliff House to sit by the beach and just enjoy it.
On Wednesday, the Oakland A's played an afternoon game so I jumped on the BART and went over to watch it. Wednesday day games have $2.00 seating and $1.00 hot dogs so it was a cheapie. The crowd was only around 10,000 so there were lots of good seats everywhere. I decided rather than sit way out in the outfield (which were not terrible seats) I'd head around behind home plate. Since the crowd was so small there was no checking to make sure folks sat in the correct seats. I haven't had a stadium dog in ages so had a couple of the $1.00 dogs. I saw some folks ordering like a dozen of those things... yikes!
All in all the game was close but through terrible mismanagement of the bullpen pitching staff (not just my opinion but all those around me as well) the A's lost the lead in the 9th inning and were not able to recover so down went the home team.
Kris
The sewing course was scheduled to run from 9:30 - 6PM Monday to Saturday. The Apparel Arts School is in a huge old warehouse that has been renovated to provide lease space for a variety of creative businesses. There are lots of webby/IT type of businesses, graphic designers, people appearing to build sets for TV and movie shoots, etc. Brian asked one guy in the adjacent office what they did (since their space Random Technologies was the most ginormous server farm I have seen), and the guy responded with a rather vague "we do some research for the chemical industry". OK ..... with enough computing power to run an entire country?? One nice aspect is there is a rather high end catering company on site that sells very good food for a lunch crowd as a side-line to their main business- not your standard cafeteria (unless your cafeteria features hand made ice cream sandwiches and fancy pasteries with gold leaf on top).
Apparel Arts has a large space with big east facing windows and large worktables and all the sewing gear you could want, including an entire army of dress forms.
I had spend most of the summer agonizing over my fitting muslin; hoping beyond hope that at some point the poor thing would grow to resemble the Chanel jacket. I sewed 3 muslins before leaving for the trip and finally had one that I thought was close to OK. The first day the instructor pulled the muslin mostly apart and re-fit it by draping it on me. The results were better than I could achieve myself and the resulting bodice was much closer fitting than anything I would normally sew. I commented that I couldn't really move my arms much; apparently that is the norm for couturier clothing. You have to just stand still and move like a praying mantis. Kind of a relief to rule out that tiresome business of actually moving or lifting a cup of coffee.
Monday afternoon we all went to Britex Fabrics to do our shopping (NOT for the faint of heart or pocketbook). I had already bought some wool for the fashion fabric and was lucky eought to find a 3 yard remnant so I wouldn't have to sweat about ruining fabric that might cost $150 a yard but by the time I had my lining, trim and buttons I concluded that I really shouldn't have been concerned about saving on the fashion fabric!
The basic drill for the jackets is to fit the muslin, mark the sewing lines, trim the muslin back to the sewing lines, baste the muslin to the fashion fabric along the sewing lines and then cut out vague shapes that leave at least 2" around the sewing lines. The lining is then pinned to the fashion fabric shapes and cut out in the same generous chunks. Then the fun begins. The lining is quilted to the fashion fabric leaving an inch or so free inside the seam line and the bodice seams are basted, leaving the lining 'hanging'. The bodice is fitted again and the shoulder seam placement is roughly established. The bodice seams are steamed open, the lining seams are hand finished with fell stitches. The result is quite remarkable - the interior of the jacket is as beautiful as the exterior and if you use a printed lining the seams are almost invisible. In my case, I used a red and tan Betsy Johnson "petite pois" (sounds better in the french than polka dots!) ...it sounds quite reasonable, but bear in mind that this far took me until Friday. Somewhere along the way I managed to snuffle up a cold germ that was floating by and got sick on Tuesday! By Thursday I was ready to call it quits I felt so crummy, but perservered since I didn't want to miss anything. The next step is to sew the sleeves (also quilted and hand finished inside) and after the final fitting to truly establish the shoulder seam placement, to pin the sleeves in place. The sleeves are set by hand. That is as far as I got on Saturday and will finish the rest of the sewing later. All the sewing that remains is hand stitching - probably shouldn't take any more than another 200 hours .;-)
At the beginning of the course the instructor indicated that it was unlikely any of us would finish our jackets during the week and she was correct. She also indicated that by the end of the week we might consider the $30,000 price tag of a couturier Chanel Jacket to be something of a bargain (she was right). Some people got further along than I did but I was very pleased with my work, did not make any cutting mistakes (one lady had a major boo boo and almost didn't have enough fabric to make her sleeves) and didn't have to rip anything out. Some of the ladies were taking the class for the second or third time just because the instruction is very good and the entire process is, oddly, very enjoyable. In the end, the jackets are truly couturier jackets, unlike the Chanel Jackets that retail in Holts for $9000 and have (horrors!!) fusible interfacing.
I learned a lot about fitting and the garment construction and, most importantly, I learned that if I sew standing up for 8 hours a day my ankles and knees will swell up like little stovepipes and I will hobble around like a penguin.
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