This is an easy drive week. Late Monday morning we left Carmel. After 3 very foggy/cloudy days and lower than average temperatures, the clouds gave way and we drove off under blue skies. Figures... but we have a ball game to go to in San Francisco so it is time to head north. After a brief stop at the Thistle Hut road side fruit stand to pick up some artichokes (both fresh and deep fried) then at the Whole Foods store in Capitola (just south of Santa Cruz) we completed our day's drive of 70 miles at the Costanoa KOA, just south of Pescadero, about half way between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay.
After checking in and grabbing a bite at the on-site "bar and grille" we jumped back in the car and drove a few miles south to a beach area which is very popular with sail-boarders and kite-boarders. What a fantastic looking sport... man, to be about 30 years younger. The kite-boarders were getting big air and really whipping along the surf. We counted 20 kite-boarders and 3 sail-boarders while we watched. Way awesome!!!
We chatted with one guy who was a kite-boarder and he said "it is so much fun it should be illegal!". Asked to compare sail vs kite he said you might as well compare a Model-T to a Mercedes... kite is faster, easier to manoeuver and you don't need as much upper body strength... and it's way more fun...:=)
The KOA at Costanoa is part of a larger eco resort and spa and turned out to be really very nice. Very quiet. It was featured in a Sunset magazine article about fancy camping places as you can rent the uber-fancy tent houses which have all amenities and there are on-site horses for riding and a network of trails through the forest. We have driven past here numerous times and dismissed it as being too far out in the boonies. It is a tad far (approx 40 minutes) out of both Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay, but for a stopover kind of place it is perfect. It also has an advantage over the KOA just south of Santa Cruz which becomes more than a bit chaotic during the summer as it, like the one in San Diego, tends to turn into a giant day care park. Last year one of the staff at the Santa Cruz KOA told us they often send customers, who don't want to camp in the chaos at their park, to Costanoa which he said is "not so family friendly" . We think we will plan to use the one south of Santa Cruz more as an off-season place when it can be significantly more quiet and great place to stay. Did we mention they have an onsite bar and restaurant and really pretty gardens... Next time I think we may test out the spa as well.
Anyway, moving north to our next destination... San Francisco. Another one of those short drives all of about 40 miles up to Pacifica where we stayed at the very, very windy San Francisco RV Resort for 5 nights as a base for our usual San Francisco activities... shopping, going to a Giants game, shopping, Nordstrom Spa, shopping, wandering around favorite neighbourhoods and museums. We also made sure to lunch at our two favorite SF restaurants; the Cliff House on the west shore and Mediteranee on Filmore. This RV resort is a good one for visiting San Francisco... hop on highway 1 and within 20 minutes, traffic co-operating, you can be wandering along Irving Street or visiting the de Young museum in Golden Gate Park.
We picked up a couple of "Clipper" cards and put $20 each on them. That's enough for 10 rides on the Muni transit system. We didn't think we would be using the Muni enough to warrant buying a 3 or 7 day pass which obviously expire. The Clipper cards never expire so will be good the next time we visit. For the downtown days, we drove from the RV park to the Outer Sunset district where we just parked on the street near the N-Line (Judah Line) of the Muni train system, used our Clipper cards to pay the fare and were downtown in no time at all.
As with all big city transit systems, you get some fairly colorful (and not so colorful) street folks sometimes sitting nearby. On our first ride downtown, a couple got on and sat just down the aisle from us. The guy started speaking in a rather loud voice about how he made his money mostly by panhandling etc and also went on about some decapitation murders that have occurred in the park (we checked the news later, online, and found no references to any recent such events). His friend exclamed, several times, that nobody better be trying to "decapitate my ass"... hmmm, makes one wonder... does she know what the word means...or... is she simply making a statement about the location of her head?
Our day at the AT&T park to see the Giants take on the Pirates was a great day for a ball game and we had great seats. Turns out we got the last two seats sold for the game. It was a sellout, but being a nice weather weekday afternoon, it looks like many season ticket holders opted to do something different as there were definitely lots of empty seats. The Giants were not able to mount any real offence, squandered a few chances with runners in scoring position, seemed to have forgotten that walking the lead-off batter more often than not comes back to haunt you, and were unable to turn intentional walks into double plays... twice walking a batter to load the bases only to have the next batter hit a bloop single resulting in another Pirates run. Final score 9-2 Pirates.
On the plus side, the Giants tied a long standing MLB record when Pablo Sandoval hit a solo home run. It was the 19th consecutive solo home run hit by the Giants, tying a record set in 1914. By the end of this week they had gone on to break the record and extend their solo home run streak to 21... they need to get more base runners if they want to get to the post season.
We were a bit disappointed that we had forgotten our camera on such a beautiful day with the views out over the bay from where we sat. However, reflecting on it later we realized that maybe we have found a pattern. Last summer our "home team mojo" was in full force as the home team won most of the games we attended. This trip we have been to 3 ball games, with 3 forgotten cameras and 3 losses for the home team... hmmm if we get to see another game on this trip we must remember to take the camera!
The main museum this trip was the de Young where they have a special exhibition on Picasso showing throughout the summer. A bit pricey ($26 each) but well worth it. We took about an hour and a half to go through the exhibit. Excellent! Picasso has never been one of my favourite artists, but this exhibit made a big impression. The works are much more powerful in person than they are in books. And there is always a surprise about the size of some paintings - I had always imagined the picture of the ladies running on the beach to be a large canvas but it is not even 12x15" (if that).
We followed up the de Young with a visit to "The Stein's Collect" special exhibit at the SFMOMA. What a great collection with numerous Matisse, Picasso and others being shown. Again, a bit pricey but well worth it...Excellent... The size of the collection was astounding ..... any more stuff and they might have been featured on Hoarders. The exhibit included photos of them in their home - you could see the paintings on the wall and so much stuff in the rooms I think you would be shuffling stuff around just to find a chair to sit in.
Five days is about what we planned for San Francisco, so on Sunday morning we headed off north all of about 40 miles across the Golden Gate Bridge to the much warmer, and less windy, Novato where we were greeted at the Novato RV Park by our first topiary RV... Well, after all, there is a vegan option for most things in California.
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