Thread: Ramblings From The USA - 1

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Thanks for posting your ramblings of your trip John, have enjoyed the story and humor.

Sunday 27th September.

Out of bed and wandering the (local) streets by 6:00 this morning, there was a showroom further down the street I had caught a glimpse of as we shot past yesterday evening, so I wanted a closer look.
The car I saw turned out to be a Talbot Lago, but there are many more I couldn’t quite work out tucked away in this place too.
Turns out to be the ‘Acadamy of Art University Museum’, cnr Washington /Van Ness, and the go-to-guy is Paul Borgwardt ph 415 618 3720.
Might have to look into that.

Took a walk down Pine St a bit later; and there’s a showroom there with an AC Cobra
in the window. Might have to look in there later too, and see what they've got on it.

We all wandered out to a little greasy diner on Polk St for a lunch, She wanted to look into windows and shops, so Rick and I wandered ahead a bit.
Standing on the corner of Polk and California I passed the comment that there appeared to be tram-lines set in the road out there, but no overhead wires for them.
No sooner said it than the mystery was solved…a cable car hove into view.
Doh!
San Francisco just sings cable-cars!
I knew that…but somehow it had slipped my mind.

Okay, so we’ve got a few things lined up to delve into to-morrow.
Should be fun!

Originally Posted by Kiwidreamer

Thanks for posting your ramblings of your trip John, have enjoyed the story and humor.

Thanks for the kind words mate.
I've always just said it as I see it,
If it raises a laugh; then that's all good,

Probably a bit late with this suggestion jb, but if not, the cable car museum would be a good spot for you to visit. It's housed in the building that drives the cables, you can even go into the "basement" and see the way the spools and cable are routed at the head of the system...........some nifty info there too. The "grab" mechanism that the operator uses is fascinating.

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Probably a bit late with this suggestion jb, but if not, the cable car museum would be a good spot for you to visit. It's housed in the building that drives the cables, you can even go into the "basement" and see the way the spools and cable are routed at the head of the system...........some nifty info there too. The "grab" mechanism that the operator uses is fascinating.

That sounds like something to see, indeed!

San Francisco Cable Car Museum
Address: 1201 Mason St, San Francisco, CA 94108
Opened: 1974
Hours: Open today · 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Phone: (415) 474-1887

Those car shops are pretty cool. There used to be one called exotic car, that had lots or rare and high priced eye candy. As a kid it usually has a ferrari in racing red in the window!

Monday 28th September.

Started walking the streets about 9:00, first stop the car dealer around the corner for a look and price on the Cobra.
It’s a nice car, not mint, but the stone chips attest it has been driven.
427ci, 4 speed manual, with a nitro bottle sitting under the console. Mustang front, 9” rear.US$45,700.
Several nice cars there, Ford 40RV, several Corvettes, some up-market European things, but nothing that was really my cup o’ soup.
So around a couple of corners to a cable car stop on California St, where we caught one to Chinatown. From there another to Beach.
We wandered around there for quite some time, with She buying shoes and other stuff, then caught another one to the Cable Car Museum (thanks Uncle Bob!) where we spent over two-and-a-half hours.
An interesting place dedicated to an interesting subject, highly recommended (although earmuffs would be a good idea,) and yeah, I got tempted; and bought a replica cable-car bell that will finish up on our front door.
Then another cable-car from Washington to Powell, yet another from Powell back to where we started from at the top of Washington, just around the corner from our hotel.
Just as well someone had told us about buying an all-day pass for transport…$17 each, as against $7 per head per trip…good value in our case.
(While I was writing this I thought I’d shoot down to the map of the cable-car system to check where we’d been…just in time to see a BMW drive into the back-right corner of a Silverado. The Ute drove away with superficial damage. The BMW’s a munted mess.)

Originally Posted by johnboy

…just in time to see a BMW drive into the back-right corner of a Silverado. The Ute drove away with superficial damage. The BMW’s a munted mess.)

Ahhh, so now you're a material witness to a traffic accident! What will you be doing with your time as you await the court proceedings?

Hah!
Nope.
The driver of the Beamer accepted full responsibility. Nothing he could say would alter that...he ran into the back of a truck stopped at a red light.

Originally Posted by johnboy

Hah!
Nope.
The driver of the Beamer accepted full responsibility. Nothing he could say would alter that...he ran into the back of a truck stopped at a red light.

His phone would probably show that he was texting or reading a text/email at the time of the crunch! Idiots! We need to pack them up and send them to New Zealand! Or maybe Australia, since their founding fathers were exiled from England.....

Remember the good ole days when it was looking at a pretty girl that caused this kind of accident...

Originally Posted by rspears

His phone would probably show that he was texting or reading a text/email at the time of the crunch! Idiots! We need to pack them up and send them to New Zealand! Or maybe Australia, since their founding fathers were exiled from England.....

That wouldn't surprise me in the least thinking about it.
He had his phone in his hand when he got out of the car.

But don't send them our way...please!
We've got enough overseas idiots creating mayhem on our roads now!
Just before we left there was a case mentioned in the papers where another American did a U turn right in front of a fully laden logging truck.
He survived; but all his passengers died.

And the trucker was pretty rattled too...

Those old Ford GT's are about as slick as they come. Not too many of them around..
I remember riding a bike into a parked car as a teenager, as one of the local cheerleaders sauntered by. It was worth the pain for the view!

Tuesday 29th September – Thursday 1st October,

Today’s our last day in the States; we fly out this afternoon at 7:00 pm for Auckland,
Then another flight to New Plymouth, from there it’s a forty mile drive to home.
We have to book out of our room at the hotel by 4:00, so will need the hotel to store our luggage for us between 2:00 and 5:00 when our airport shuttle arrives, so organised that.
Okay…so what do we do between 9:30 and 5:00?
Sit in the room and watch tv until we have to vacate it.
Umm…no.
You can do that when you get home; in the meantime there’s one hell of a lot of San Francisco we’ve not seen; the least we can do is go for a walk.
So that’s what we did after some grumbling.
(Mutter mutter, grumble mutter I thought holidays were for relaxing mutter grumble.)

Back to the hotel about 4:00, got our luggage, caught the shuttle, (who then visited other hotels until he had fourteen of us and our luggage aboard,) and out to the airport.
Got our luggage and ourselves on the plane…and…”Sorry folks, one passenger has not arrived; so in the interests of security we’re going to have to find and offload his luggage. This may take some time, and we apologise for the delay.”
And it did take some time; over an hour.
Finally flew out at 8:15.
For a twelve and a half hour flight.

I’m usually not too good on sleeping on aircraft, but all of us managed to get some quite good kip this time; arriving Thursday, totally bewildered as to what time or day/date it was initially.

Rick had decided to spend a few days in Auckland visiting friends, and had arranged to get picked up from the airport, so that was all good, while we caught our flight to New Plymouth at 9:00am, arriving to find Pete and Trish Rawcliffe waiting for us with our car
Thanks people...that’s much appreciated!
And so to home.
The end of a bloody gorgeous trip across a bloody gorgeous country, meeting some bloody gorgeous people, and seeing some bloody gorgeous sights.

Thanks to all we met along the way; and all who had input into making our ramble across the States a memorable one!

Okay, so that's about it from us for this month, so "Cheers" until next time, drive careful, be kind to one another, and may whatever Gods you worship smile on you!

johnboy and She Who Must Be Obeyed.

Disclaimer: be aware that the views and the opinions expressed by the author of this missive are bloody good ones.

Maybe you could take a local tour of your home, as I'll miss your lively commentary.