We were in no hurry to leave Sonoma, but it had to be done. First, it was to Carneros for breakfast, which wasn’t as good as the dinner we had there. Then, it was on the road to San Francisco. We had a room reserved on Fisherman’s Wharf. I know that it’s a tourist area, but sometimes you just have to do tourist things. Necole had never been there, and we thought that she should see it.
We retraced our trek and returned to the city by going over the Golden Gate Bridge. Necole put on Facebook that it wasn’t really gold, and one of her friends said the name had something to do with the type of paint they used. That’s not exactly right. The bridge spans over a waterway that is known as the Golden Gate. You have to watch out for those Facebook facts.
After crossing, we headed toward the wharf on streets that were filled with traffic. They were also filled with pedestrians, bicycles, trolleys and other untold transportation methods. Sometimes, I think that Necole is not impressed with my driving. On this day, she thought I was doing an excellent job.
We made it to the hotel, got into the room and said, “What the heck? Let’s go out amongst them.” Let me tell you, there were a lot of them. People were everywhere. Necole said that it was worse than walking in New York City. Crowds gathered around street performers and blocked the sidewalks. Bicycles whizzed by. People were wandering around and not looking where they were going. It was chaos. It was also linguistically chaotic, as we heard dozens of languages.
Anyway, we went to Pier 39, the heart of tourism along the waterway. This is where you can find the Hard Rock Cafe, Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Company and a guy pretending to be Jack Sparrow. It is also where you can find the sea lions that are always hanging around. Except, they don’t hang around this time of year because they are busy repopulating the Earth with more sea lions.
There was one guy swimming around. I didn’t see a pocket protector, so I don’t know why he couldn’t get a girl.
By this time, we were becoming overwhelmed. We probably saw more people on the wharf than we had in Half Moon Bay and Sonoma combined. We were tired. We were hungry. It was time to find some food and some relaxation. Taking the advice of our bellhop, we went to Scoma’s. That was crap. He probably got a cut for sending people there.
We sat at the bar to wait for a table, and this crusty old bartender asked what we needed. She looked older than the wharf. Necole wanted something specific, and they had a little go around before coming up with a drink. Necole wasn’t happy and spoke in hushed tones about the bartender’s attitude. When we got up, she said, “That’s what you call a broad. Not a woman. A broad.” I was so proud of her. That term hasn’t been used since the days of Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. Necole went all historic on me.
The waiter was nicer, but I didn’t think the food was any better than the bartender was. After that, we walked some more and made our way to the hotel, which had some fire pits set up outside. Having some of that good Laxton wine with the twist off cap, we decided to take a bottle street side. That’s when Necole got into it with another broad.
Apparently, there is a $20 bottle fee at the fire pits, and the woman working in the deli shop inside was going to get her $20. We paid it but not without getting our money’s worth. The lady was told in no uncertain terms that we had paid hundreds of dollars for a room and should be able to drink our wine anywhere we wanted. She retorted that no restaurant would allow us to do that. That’s when Necole replied, “This isn’t a restaurant! It’s a lobby!”
Some guy from Los Angeles was sitting with us when that happened. We found out that his father used to be the mayor of Los Angeles, and that he was in San Francisco with a bunch of buddies. They were going to show up at any time. They never did show up. I think he was he San Francisco by himself.
Oh, I forgot that a homeless man was sitting at another fire pit when we sat down. They didn’t charge him a bottle fee for his tall boy.
Eventually, some people from Seattle sat with us. They were interesting and taught me a lot. Namely, the South does not have the monopoly on rednecks.
SBI: A Thinning Crowd 