San Francisco Part 2

More history…

As every schoolkid knows, 1848 brought big changes to California. San Francisco was nearly deserted as everyone poured over the mountains to search for gold. By the end of that year more than 8000 miners were digging away near Sutter’s Mill. By 1849, the “Argonauts” had grown to more than 100,000 miners. People returned to San Francisco, selling goods and services to those miners as they passed through. By the 1850 census, 92% of San Francisco’s residents were men. (Some say this is when San Francisco’s lively restaurant scene began!)

Chinatown is fun. Restaurants alternate with touristy shops on every street. We were lucky enough to stumble onto a celebration featuring men in dragon costumes, drummers, and loads of firecrackers. www.sanfranciscochinatown.com/

The years from 1850 – 1900 were turbulent. Fires, gangs of thugs from Australia, “shanghai-ing” of sailors, instant wealth from the Comstock Lode, Chinese immigrants, anti-Chinese legislation (they actually made it illegal for prisoners to wear the traditional Chinese “queue” or braid), lavish homes, clipper ships, and a huge whaling industry all rose and fell in that half-century.

San Francisco’s famous cable cars run today on steel cables that move under the streets – just like they did when they were invented. In 1869, Andrew Hallidie witnessed a terrible accident – a horse-drawn car slid out of control on a rainy day and dragged five horses to their deaths. Four years later, using wire rope invented by his father, Hallidie constructed the first non-horse-powered streetcar. Animal lovers everywhere rejoiced. (And my teenagers enjoyed hanging onto the outside of the cable cars uphill and down and back again.) www.sfcablecar.com/index.html

And then, The Earthquake. Actually the 1906 earthquake only did part of the damage. It was the uncontrolled fires that raged for three days that did the city in. But if any city could survive after all the changes of the previous 50 years, San Francisco could. The citizens rallied and rebuilt.

A few buildings survived the 1906 earthquake. We stayed in one of these old buildings – the San Remo Hotel, in North Beach (2237 Mason St.). After the 1906 earthquake, the San Remo opened its doors to those who had lost their homes, providing free housing. For a visitor today, the hotel’s location can’t be beat – just a few blocks off Fisherman’s Wharf, one block from the end of the Mason-Powell cable car line, and a block from a Trader Joe’s. Dozens of yummy Italian restaurants are within walking distance. The Beat movement developed just up Columbus Avenue. The only drawback – and this is a charming point to lots of travelers – is that the rooms are tiny and bathrooms are shared with the entire floor. The price is great, too. We had a triple room for $90 a night. And on checking out we were treated to one of those nights for $19.06, in honor of the hotel’s 100^th anniversary. www.sanremohotel.com/

By 1915 the city was hosting a world’s fair. In 1937 the Golden Gate bridge was opened. In World War II the city boomed. Ships were built across the bay in Sausalito and the Pacific fleet came and went from the Bay.

The Golden Gate Bridge (www.goldengate.org/) is still a marvel of engineering. One of the best ways to experience it is by bike. Rentals are available at several shops near Ghirardelli Square www.blazingsaddles.com  www.baycitybike.com

Post-war brought the Beats and then the Hippies. In recent years it’s led the way in gay rights, organic and sustainable agriculture, and tourism. In San Francisco, there’s always something going on.

My teenage daughter wanted to see where the hippie movement began, so we took a streetcar out to Haight-Ashbury. The corner now boasts a busy Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop. But along Haight Street there are lots of funky little resale shops, coffee houses, and interesting people. Some hippies appear never to have moved on with their lives, and so are still on the street corner, playing guitar for a few coins. Only now they’re balding with grey ponytails. www.sanfranciscobay.com/haightashbury/

(Thanks to Historic San Francisco, by Rand Richards, 1997, and other guidebooks for the historical information)

San Francisco Part 1

Our big family trip this summer was to California.  The kids (teens) and I had 5 days in San Francisco, then my husband joined us for the rest of our 2 weeks.  We saw much of SF then traveled down the coast as far as Big Sur, then up the coast to Point Reyes and over to Napa. 

 It’s one of the best family trips we’ve ever had — and I think a lot of the reason is that the kids are old enough to do, understand, and enjoy the same things we adults do.  Whether it was trying gourmet foods at Julia’s Restaurant at Copia (in Napa) or kayaking on Elkhorn Slough (near Monterey), or poking around the tidepools (several places), we had fun together. 

For me, the first thing I want to know about a city is its history.  So here’s my report:  Part 1, San Francisco’s history:

San Francisco has packed a lot of drama into its short history. First, it hid for nearly 200 years while European ships sailed right past the bay without noticing it. (Lucky for the Coast Miwoks and Ohlone, who got those extra years to live in nature’s abundance.)

For an idea of how the landscape looked to early explorers, hike Land’s End. When it’s clear, the views of the Golden Gate bridge and the Bay are stunning. When it’s foggy, all you see is fog. It’s easy to understand how the bay stayed hidden for those 200 years!

With the founding of Mission Dolores in 1776, the area became part of Mexico. Ships from all over the world began to find their way into San Francisco Bay, but it was just one of many ports along the Pacific coast. Yerba Buena sprung up as a port town.

Mission Dolores is still around, but, I have to admit, we never got out there to see it. Built in 1776, it’s the oldest intact building in San Francisco. www.missiondolores.org/mission/mission.html

In 1846 the village of Yerba Buena was seized by US troops without a shot being fired. With a population of about 500, Yerba Buena became San Francisco a year later. After another year Mexico ceded all of California to the United States.

The Maritime Museum is part of the National Park Service. The visitor’s center/museum has interesting films about the five historic ships that are docked just across the street. It reminds you how San Francisco was not readily reachable by land until the 1930s! The visitor’s center hourly shows an old film about a ship crossing the Atlantic and Cape Horn in raging storms with waves higher than the masts. I found myself thinking of the thousands of young men with gold fever who left everything behind and braved that journey by ship. www.maritime.org/index.htm

Hot August = summer’s end

Summer officially ends at my house at 6:30 am August 13.  That’s when I’ll drag my sleepy-headed kids out of bed to go back to school.  Sigh.  Back in my day I had all those hot August days to hide out under the hickory tree with a book.  Now?  Well, at least their schools offer better academics than I had at my schools.

 Since we returned from our summer trip to San Francisco at the end of July, I’ve been busy fitting band uniforms and lazing in the hammock.  But I want this blog to be about more than just me, so I promise to begin posting about California soon.

 In the meantime, here’s what I’m working on, travel-wise:

How to prepare your teenager to go overseas

Ten books every toddler needs

Multiple trips to Omaha, Nebraska — for a set of 3 workshops over the next 14 months.

During the wait

So, you may ask, what do you do with two teens (ages 13 & 17) while waiting 10 hours at an airport with no Starbucks to give you caffeine sustenance?  First you give thanks that the kids are no longer toddlers.  You smile benignly at the young parents with screaming babies.  Teens are much easier to travel with.

 Mostly you play cards.  I learned several games they play during lunch at school, most of which have names that aren’t suitable for publication.  But the games themselves are harmless fun and pass the time.

And when you’re tired of playing cards, you troll the shops looking for expensive junk food to buy.

And when you’re full of junk food, you read for awhile, or (in my son’s case) play Gameboy until the battery dies.  Or (in my daughter’s case) you stand in the bookshop and read all the magazines.

And then you play cards again.

I sure hope this counts as quality parenting time.

After the trip

Well, I shouldn’t have bragged about my packing skills.  It didn’t jinx our luggage, but it sure jinxed our air travel!  For the first time in all our travels we were stuck in airports for hours, both going out and returning, missing flights, waiting to board delayed flights, and enduring knuckle-biting standby.  And, no, it wasn’t Atlanta’s own Delta.  It was American Airlines.  I understand that financial pressures are making the airlines repair old planes with bobby pins and duct tape.  Apparently the duct tape slipped on our flights.

 So here’s my travel tip for today.  Be sure to pack your glasses and medicines and your kid’s retainer in carry-on luggage in case you get stranded overnight.  Until Delta stepped in with red-eye seats it looked like my kids and I were going to be treated to a stopover night in Dallas… not my idea of fun.

Before the trip

You’d think I was traveling to a far-off land without convenience stores.  When I pack for a trip I try to take everything my family could possibly need.  When the kids were 3 & 7 we spent a winter in Germany where ordinary over-the-counter medications were by prescription only.  I think it warped me forever.  So now I always take along a couple of Ibuprofen, a couple of Benadryl, a couple of chewable Pepto Bismols…  At least I don’t carry the whole bottle of each like I did for Germany. 

Another packing issue I hope I’ve conquered is forgetting things because I’m rushing around at the last minute.  Other people often report having nightmares about finding themselves naked in public, or trying to take a final in a class you never got around to attending, or walking across a floor that’s more like quicksand… My nightmare that pops up to haunt me is that I’m late for the plane and haven’t started packing yet.  So to forestall that nightmare, I pull out everything I’m taking 2 days before we leave, and put a sticky note on the suitcase as to what’s still to be packed (like my toothbrush). 

And here’s the packing tip of the day.  Take along “disposable” reading material like magazines and paperback books you can pass along to others once you’ve read them.  That frees up suitcase space for new books and souvenirs.

Hello world!

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging…. I am a travel and children’s writer living in Georgia.  I chose the name “The Go Gene” (without spaces unfortunately because of the hosting site’s requirements) because my Mom used to say she and I had the “go” gene.  Neither of us was happy to sit at home for too long. 

 So, Mom, this site’s named in memory of you and of the way you made long car trips interesting, the way you taught us to travel on a shoestring, and the way you took every opportunity to see the world.