I mentioned in this space last week that I had one of those dream-come-true events in my life recently when my daughter Chrissy, myself, and our two spouses went to San Francisco to see the baseball Giants play a three-game series.
Chrissy and I have been Giants fans our entire life and after she pressed me for over 10 years to visit the home park of our favorite team, we all finally did that. It’s been over two weeks since our return and we keep talking about it, agreeing that nothing could really have made it a better memory.
I talked last week about the actual games and the three different seats we had so we could experience the park from different viewpoints (Oracle Park is considered one of the best major league stadiums to enjoy a game), but the entire city of San Francisco—where none of us had ever visited—really left quite a few surprisingly positive impressions.
The homeless situation is reported on national news stations as one of the worst in the country, but we were quite stunned to find out that the vast majority of the city does not have any serious problem. An area called the “Tenderloin District,” right in the middle of downtown, is reportedly where the problem is really severe.
We stayed in a place called the Hotel Griffon, touted as “one of the best places to stay with amazing security,” since we expected to be stepping over homeless people the second we walked out the front door.
I envisioned this huge hotel, which had a restaurant and bar downstairs, where we could lounge around all day if we were worried about the homeless. I figured there would be big security guards at the front door, making sure those “terrible homeless people” wouldn’t come chase us down at dinner.
Instead, the front door was open for anyone to come in, and the “huge” downstairs was about as tiny as you could find. The elevator really was, far-and-away, the smallest I’ve ever been in. I would say it measured 4 feet X 6 feet, no kidding. We couldn’t even get the four of us with luggage in there. The elevator became a point of plenty of jokes throughout the week and you can guess, we used the stairs a lot.
All the downtown hotels are pretty expensive—over $300 a night—and that’s another reason we expected these luxurious, huge rooms with all the extras. Nope. It was the smallest room we’ve ever stayed in, although the staff was always friendly, and the morning coffee was the best I’ve ever had at a hotel.
We decided not to try and rent a car to get around—a great decision—and used an Uber anytime we had a new place to attend. Totally eliminated any chance of your friendly editor here insisting I knew where to go, and then getting lost in Oakland somewhere. My wife might have appreciated that decision more than anyone!
As many of you know, the weather in San Francisco is kind of like nowhere else on Earth, it seems. Cool every day of the year I’m told, and at least for our visit, it was almost the same every day. About 53 in the morning, maybe upper 50s in the afternoon, and supposedly doesn’t rain at all six months out of the year.
That made it perfect for one of our ventures away from the park when we walked the Golden Gate Bridge one day, something that is a huge tourist attraction with people from all around the country—reminded us of being at DisneyWorld and hearing all those different languages. One side of the bridge has a lane for walking and riding a bike across the 1.7-mile span, but an interesting aspect is the effort made to stop people from jumping off the side to their death.
They have a net that is 20-feet below the side of the bridge, which extends out 20 feet, all because it seems the bridge is a favorite for those wishing to end their life. There is an average of 30 people a year who jump to their death, but the “suicide net” has been highly criticized since it cost $400 million—something critics say could have been spent much more judiciously for therapy and other means to help people contemplating suicide.
One of our other memorable outings was to Chinatown and I’ll tell you about that next week, plus a few other final tidbits on our trip during Part III of the “Famous Giants Trip.”
Kevin Chiri can be reached by e-mail at kevinchiri@gmail.com.