Playing Tourist #3 -- December 11, 2010

Today we played tourist. Yesterday I bought three one-day Muni passports. We parked at Fifth and Mission and caught Milano car 1818 decorated for Christmas. We got off at Drumm and caught California Street cable car 60, decorated for Christmas by my friend Val Lupiz. We got off at Taylor, intending to look around Grace Cathedral, but there was some kind of event going on. We walked over to the Fairmont to see the giant gingerbread house.

We went down the hill to the cable car barn. I had heard they were remodeling the recreation center, but actually it had been torn down. I got some photos of a different angle of the barn. We found that the Powell Street cable was stopped. We walked down to Powell and Jackson to catch a car. 21 was stopped inbound just patch Washington. We later learned that there had been a hairball, an unstranded cable.

We caught an almost empty blue and gold car 16 on the Powell-Mason. I pointed out John Street, where my family had once lived, and looked for apartments where other relatives had lived while I was alive. We got off at Bay and Taylor and walked over to the IHOP for lunch. Since we flew to Southern California, we had not made our traditional stop in the summer at the IHOP in San Luis Obispo.

We walked out to Hyde and Beach and found a short line, so we joined it. We watched Escape Man do his act. He had an assistant chain him to a lamppost, then struggled free of the chains and a strait jacket. Not bad. We saw car 11 which had been decorated and we got on 13, which had been decorated by the Buena Vista Cafe. We had a nice ride back to Powell and Washington. The substitution bus was jammed.

We also saw 6, which had just gotten out of the paint shop. It had no dings except in the bell.

The Union Square area was jammed, but we stopped to see the sugar castle at the Saint Francis and the animals at Macys.