# 4th Of July Weekend Trip To San Francisco



## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

Back in March, my parents and I decided to take the long 4th of July weekend and go to San Francisco. I had not been up to San Francisco since High School so I figured it would be a fun quick getaway. We decided to take the Amtrak San Joaquin since my parents live on the northern edge of Los Angeles county.

Our train number 711 was scheduled to depart at 4:55 AM on 7/4/2014 so we left my parents house at 2:30 AM ish so we could get to the station with plenty of time to spare. When we arrived in Bakersfield Station, my parents and I were quite surprised at how many people were already there and waiting to board the train. We were thinking it would be an empty train leaving Bakersfield because of the early departure time but that was not to be.

Our Train:



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A small group of the number of people waiting for the train:



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My mom had me leave all the luggage with her and jump into the door as soon as it opened and grab one of the group seatings with the big table. As soon as the doors opened at 4:30, I jumped in, ran up the stairs and grabbed the first open group seating table. My parents followed along later after stashing the luggage. Secondly, the seats do NOT recline. You have to get up once in a while to stretch and give your trail bone a rest from the seats. Third, the leg rooms seem very generous for a corridor train. The seat pitch seemed almost the same as the business class seats on the Pacific Surfliners.

Couple observations about the Amtrak San Joaquin. First, the overhead storage as you can see in the picture below are the airline / bus type with a very small opening. You can't fit any rollers into that thing. On the Surfliner trains down south with the open racks, you can fit a lot of stuff including rollers.

View of our car from the door leading to the cafe.



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Seat Pitch is very generous for a corridor train.



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For the single travelers on this train, getting one of these seats seemed to be the priority:



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We settled into our seats and I went to the cafe which was already open to pick up some coffee and milk. The conductor who made announcements for this train made it clear that this would be a full train and if anyone had their belongings in an empty seat that they would be kicked off the train. The other two conductors that I saw scanning tickets seemed mellow, but the one making the announcements I never saw. Soon enough we were on our way and had breakfast of pastries from the business class of the Surfliner from earlier in the week.

For most of the morning, we tried to sleep but it was really difficult to do so with the non reclining seats. No one ever ended up seating in the fourth free seat so it was just the three of us all the way to Emeryville in our group seating area.


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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

The rest of the morning was uneventful. Later on when we all decided there was no point in trying to sleep. We broke out the snack packs from the Surfliner business class and had some wine. Most of the station stops seem to be about 27-30 min travel time.

Images from the Bay Area from the train:

California Zephyr in Martinez.



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C & H Sugar



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Our Train at Emeryville



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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

The next part of the trip was AmBus ride into the city. Our stop was the Shopping Center at Union Square. This part of the trip did not start out so well. None of the bus drivers knew which one was our bus. People were starting to get angry after being send to multiple buses and then sent away to another one. In the end, one of the bus drivers looked again at his clipboard and realized that he was the one to take us to the Shopping Center. The man was really embarrassed. Turns out that his normal day job is driving the Yahoo Shuttle and he was only working the AmBus due to the high volume of travelers for 4th of July.

The man in the red thanked everyone for taking the train.



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The old span of the bay bridge being demolished



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San Francisco from the Bay Bridge



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Around 11:20 ish we arrived at our stop. We walked across the street to our hotel on O'farrell street. We booked the Hilton O'Farrell when we booked the train tickets via Amtrak.Com. Our location was perfect. It was right in the heart of Union Square and just around the corner from the Powell / Mason cable car station.



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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

We were too early for checkin, but they let us checkin with a $25 dollar early checkin fee. We gladly said YES. The guests of the hotel seemed to be lots of tourists and also lots of airline crew including Air France.



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Once we settled in, we decided to walk to Chinatown which is only a little over a mile away to have lunch at "The House Of Nanking" which was recommended by by friends and also online. When we arrived at the location, there was a sign that said they were closed for the 4th.  No matter, we decided to go to the restaurant with the second highest rating just around the corner on Jackson street. When we got there, everyone else in the world must have read the review as well. We got a number and waited. The line went pretty quickly at the "Great Eastern Restaurant."



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Obama Ate Here:



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Looking Up Jackson Street:



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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

The Food We Ordered At "Great Eastern Restaurant."



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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

More Food:

That is steam causing the fog



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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

After lunch, we decided to walk to Fisherman's Warf.

View from Jackson toward the bay bridge.



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As we were walking along Columbus. We wandered into North Beach and had to sample some of the Italian goodies. We ordered the canoli's and biscotti's with coffee.



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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

Again another detour when we ran into Lombard Street.



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Hyde street cable car.



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When we reached Hyde street via Lombard, we walked down towards the Fort Mason and Ghirardelli Square.


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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

Once we reached the Maritime Museum, all three of us decided to walk to the Golden Gate Bridge. It would be a 3.5 ish mile walk but after a big lunch and italian dessert, we figured we could use the exercise. Here are some pictures from the walk to the bridge.



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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

Almost there!



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Naturally we decided to walk across it and back when we got to the bridge.



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One too many hand have touched the first set.



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The main cable half way across.



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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

So after walking across the bridge round trip, our knees and legs were killing us. It turns out that the Golden Gate Bridge is 1.7 miles each way, meaning we walked another 3+ miles on top the the 5+ miles that we already walked from the hotel. Once we got back to the SF side, we got the first cab we saw and headed to Castro for dinner. Once we arrived there, it too was closed and took a cab back to Fisherman's Wharf. We ended up having dinner at the wharf.



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When in SF it has to be Sour Dough.



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Crab Chowder again in a sour dough bowl



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Clam Chowder



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The WORST oysters rockefeller ever.



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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

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Got to have the crab when in SF.



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After dinner we went outside to watch the fireworks but the fog messed things up. It would have been a spectacular show had it not been for the fog and the street performers trying to play over the music.



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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

After the fireworks were over, it was a mess as with any big crowd event. We could not get a cab so we walked again. My phone was running out of battery at this point so my dad used his. Little did we know till later when we realized something was wrong that my dad was using Apple's crappy map along with driving mode and not walking mode. We ended up walking up a bunch of hills and passed the cable car museum through the window we could see the cable mechanism. In front of the Fairmont hotel, we grabbed a cab the rest of the way to our hotel. After about 9-10 miles of walking, we all crashed when we got into our room.



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That concludes day 1 of the trip on 7/4/2014. I'll update with day 2 tomorrow.


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## Everydaymatters (Jul 21, 2014)

Great trip report. Nice pictures. Looking forward to day 2.


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## OlympianHiawatha (Jul 21, 2014)

Great report and great pics, especially of the Bay Bridge. It looks like with all the tourists walking on Lombard Street a driver would be hard pressed to get in there!


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## bobnjulie (Jul 21, 2014)

Really enjoyed your report! Fun to see since we went north to south and you went south to north! San Francisco is lovely but those hills can be rough!


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## CaliforniaMom (Jul 21, 2014)

Loved this report, since I grew up in SF! You walked A LOT, very impresssed!

Sorry about the fog, very typical SF weather for the summer.


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## Bob Dylan (Jul 21, 2014)

Excellent report and pics! With the Gathering being in San Francisco this year this really hits the spot!

I'm surprised by the $25 Early Check in Fee @ the Hilton, I've never seen that one before!!!!

As for the Chinese Joints being closed,in my experience Chinese-Americans are very Patriotic and really appreciate our Country!

Look forward to the next episode!/


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## Misty. (Jul 21, 2014)

Nice report and pictures! Now I know that California cars have those solo seats, and I will try to remember that next time I end up in one 

Also as one that has done it because she wanted to be in Sacramento by a particular time but "had" to fly into LA cuz she tries to only fly nonstop (and because the run I booked that included a Surfliner had to be canceled due to the Flyaway bus hitting insane traffic on the way and me missing said Surfliner-based run)... Lots of connections from Thruway bus 5811, too, I'd bet.


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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

jimhudson said:


> Excellent report and pics! With the Gathering being in San Francisco this year this really hits the spot!
> 
> I'm surprised by the $25 Early Check in Fee @ the Hilton, I've never seen that one before!!!!
> 
> ...


Oh I should add, that with that $25 dollars, they added the usual taxes on top of it so ended up close to $30.00 dollars.


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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

Misty. said:


> Nice report and pictures! Now I know that California cars have those solo seats, and I will try to remember that next time I end up in one
> 
> Also as one that has done it because she wanted to be in Sacramento by a particular time but "had" to fly into LA cuz she tries to only fly nonstop (and because the run I booked that included a Surfliner had to be canceled due to the Flyaway bus hitting insane traffic on the way and me missing said Surfliner-based run)... Lots of connections from Thruway bus 5811, too, I'd bet.


The AmBus connections at Bakersfield is insane. It seems to cover everywhere in SoCal that does not touch a rail. The announcement regarding bus # and destination was LONG on our return trip. I'll explain further in the report for the return trip.


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## seat38a (Jul 21, 2014)

CaliforniaMom said:


> Loved this report, since I grew up in SF! You walked A LOT, very impresssed!
> 
> Sorry about the fog, very typical SF weather for the summer.


It was burrrrrr cold. But if you crossed the bay and went couple miles inland, it was in the 90's



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## seat38a (Jul 22, 2014)

Day two report: Day Two


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