Sunday, November 15, 2009

Urban Camping in San Francisco

After spending an afternoon at Starbucks trying to find a reasonably priced place to sleep for the night in or near San Francisco (Tip: there are none) we decided to wing it and if worse came to worst we'd just drive around all night.

So we hopped in the Dod and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge.




We drove around a little before coming across a parking lot with an all-day fee of $8. We we're extra pleased to find out that "all-day" applied till 6 a.m. the next morning. Who'd have thought there was prime camping right in downtown San Fran for so cheap?
We filled a water bottle with whiskey and headed out for the Haight-Ashbury district.

Great place. However, the bars sucked, which was weird because the rest of it was so cool. But by this time the water bottle was empty so we stopped at a sports bar that played crappy music and had a beer.
Afterwards we walked down Haight back towards the Dod and strolled throw the lower Haight district where we grabbed a slice of pizza and happened across Noc Noc, a bar that looked like the kind of place a witch doctor would hang out if he moved to the city.


After a couple more beers we made our way back to the Dod. Surprisingly the parking lot was pretty well lit and there was a lot of traffic in the area. Feeling confident about leaving the Dod alone for a little while longer we unlocked the bikes and went for an evening ride through the streets of San Fran. But not before refilling our water bottle.

We eventually made it to the center of the downtown area and stopped to take a few swigs near the skating rink.




After stopping at another bar or two we were pretty hungry. Luckily we came across Tommy's Joynt, a kick-ass sandwich place. I ordered a corned beef and Nikki got a pastrami.

We made our way back to the Dod to pass out for a few hours before we had to leave at 6.
In the morning we drove over to fisherman's wharf, where we spent most of the day today. As Nikki slept in I wandered around the area and took these choice shots just as dawn broke.

That's Alcatraz in the middle of San Francisco Bay.
After rousing Nikki we hit the wharf.
As we wandered up to one of the piers we could hear a strange noise.
Nikki thought someone left their radio on, but I knew what it was.
Sea Lions. Hundreds of them. They pile on top of each other and bark and honk and roll around all day. Sometimes one of the bigger ones lays on top of one of the smaller ones and the smaller one has to squeeze his way out from underneath and then crawl around on top of all the others. Then the other ones get mad at him and bark in his face. It's pretty funny.






We checked out a submarine and a warship and the Musee Mecanique, a museum of old-timey coin-operated machines.

This one had 20's-era nudie pics.

After some chowder we hopped on a cable car and headed downtown where we found an art fair.


A little more wandering and we were ready to hit the road again. We made it a little further south on the HWY 1 and are staying at a Pilot Travel Center tonight. Tomorrow, who knows?

2 comments:

  1. You guys should know better than to put all those sea lion pics up... Colin won't be able to leave his room for like 4 days now.

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  2. that chowder looks great, nothing like a bread bowl. If you hit the warf in Monterey the best chowder is the first on the left as your walking down. Watch out though the place is haunted.

    When you get to big sur you might want to try your hand for some Jade aks around and someone might point the way. It's a cool way to spend some time.

    Thanks for the pics have fun.

    Peace, Brad.

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