Whenever we visit San Francisco, we drop in to the Gold Dust Lounge, an old Union Square bar previously at 247 Powell Street. Its origins date back to 1933, the year Prohibition ended. Bing Crosby owned a piece of the Gold Dust in the 1950's; it was the only bar at Union Square not attached to a restaurant or hotel; it had live music and inexpensive drinks. It also had Chuck - the barman. He was there every time we dropped in and even if it was several years between drinks, so to speak, he always remembered us.
The Gold Dust was owned by the Handlery family and run by the Bovis brothers, both in their 80's. I believe that the lease on the property had a clause that provided for 3 months notice to vacate. When the Handlery family told the Bovis brothers to pack up - after many, many years - the brothers refused to go. Court action followed; there was even an attempt to preserve the bar as an historical site! To no avail.
The Gold Dust had closed when we were in San Francisco last July. Chuck, however, is at Lefty O'Doul's around the corner - also owned by the Handlery family and run by the Bovis brothers!!
Lefty O'Doul - 1897-1969 - was an American Major League Baseball player who went on to become a successful manager in the minor leagues and prominent in the establishment of professional baseball in Japan.
The popular restaurant and bar he founded still operates as Lefty O'Doul's. It is said the bar still serves his original recipe for Bloody Mary (although Wikipedia suggests the recipe was modified in the 1960's by O'Doul's bartender Chuck Davis - could that be our Chuck?)
To get back to the Gold Dust, the old west reminder of a time long gone has been reborn. On 1 February this year the Gold Dust Lounge reopened in a new venue at Fishermans Wharf.
We will drop in when we are back in San Francisco.
We had a nice dinner at Lefty O'Doul's. The meals were quite large and we took a box - our leftovers.Trevor helped Finlay find a street person to give the food to as we walked back to the BART.
We leave San Francisco on Friday 12 April. We are all on board the RV for the drive to Los Angeles. It is a cool morning - 53F; the sun is coming out; fog is over the hills. It is a typical San Francisco morning.We will drive some of Highway 1, a major north-south state highway that runs along most of the Pacific coastline of California. It is famous for its access to some of the most beautiful coastlines in the US. It also provides a scenic route to numerous attractions along the coast.
We all have seat belts in the RV. I know there will be some taking in turns to sit up front - for the moment I am in the front seat as we navigate out of San Francisco.
It is surprising how quickly we reach the countryside. That is not to say that the traffic drops off much. It is still busy as the road narrows and the number of lanes reduce to a 2-way road.
Not far out of San Francisco we drive through the Tom Lantos Tunnels which recently opened - on 25 March this year. The tunnels are located within Devil's Slide, a coastal promontory, allowing Highway 1 to bypass that nasty stretch for a safer route.
Then we are on to beautiful Half Moon Bay.
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| It didn't take long to lose my seat! |
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| Yes we will stop soon ... |
We have visited Monterey previously and as the parking looks a bit tight with narrow hilly streets, we drop them off. The fun starts when we try to drive out of the narrowness of Cannery Row. We find ourselves heading for 17-Mile Drive to Pebble Beach, a beautiful drive but not exactly a road for a motorhome!
We finally extricate ourselves and find a nice large carpark by the harbour to have lunch.
The photos look as if they had a lot of fun at the aquarium.Their complaint was that they didn't have enough time there.
It is the largest aquarium in the US - obviously a day would have been great - but with a long list of to-do's someone has to keep the show on the road???
We head back into the narrow streets to pick them up - amazing how these things can be orchestrated with a couple of mobile phones - and there they are.
Finally we are back on the road headed for the Salinas/Monterey KOA.
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| Our lunch spot |
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| We are fitting in all sorts of places! |
It has a great climate and long growing season.
Water projects are ongoing to cope with the ever increasing demand.
The Salinas valley is also the setting for several John Steinbeck stories including East Of Eden and Of Mice And Men.
We rent a cabin for Kim and Finlay at the KOA - it is perfect! I prepared a meal before we left San Francisco so we have dinner in the RV. Obviously the kids don't intend to eat home cooking all the time while they are away but so far it has been 50/50. After several days you need some vegetables, broccoli and more broccoli.
The next day we head on further south. We plan to be in the Anaheim RV Resort on Sunday so one more night on the road.The camp host at KOA suggests that Highway 1 is no picnic for the driver of an RV - it twists and turns and, while open to all vehicles, there doesn't seem to be much point in Trevor missing the scenery and being under pressure. Especially when not all of the passengers are very interested.
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| Some are interested! |
Mid afternoon we take 154 at Buelton thinking to avoid traffic and windy roads. The GPS takes us through the Santa Ynez and San Raphael mountains! It is quite windy at the top and we drive through clouds as we get higher. What was that about stressful driving?
We find an RV park with a motel close by. We drop Kim and Finlay off at the motel. They will fend for themselves tonight - there are fast food places all around.
They don't get a very good sleep. The motel is noisy with thin walls.
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| Boondockers along the beach at Ventura. |
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| She is still here! |
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| He's back!! |
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