California Poppy

We were driving out along Point Reyes National Seashore and John pointed out the quiet fragile beauty of the California Poppy, the state flower. Treat to find some this late into summer and the field of yellow is quite a sight.

And how different from the suburban flowers we have been seeing along our city walk.

Hanging baskets on the Promenade, San Francisco

Bougainvillea and 'beetle' juniper trees, San Francisco

Secret garden along a stairway, Telegraph Hill

San Francisco: Ferry Building and Chinatown

Two quite different shopping experiences, produce from Stockton Street in Chinatown, in your face smells and chaotic. Versus the gentile organic upmarket produce from the revamped Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco. 

Fred has been missing finding pies here in the US, so very excited to pick up a beef pot pie from the Golden Gate Meat Company in the ferry building.

Graceful Ferry Building, San Francisco

San Francisco: Cable Cars and Stairways

Oh boy the map of San Francisco does not show the hills. And such steep hills too. No wonder it has become a city of many staircases connecting cul de sacs, streets and neighbourhoods. Some of them secret linkages with lovingly tended gardens, others purely functional.

But the hero of the hills has to be the cable cars, whether grinding up Nob's Hill or navigating the Hyde - Powell line, the trickiest of them all. What a treat to sit and watch the city at work and at play.

The vision and foresight to preserve and to continue to invest in the cable cars makes San Francisco so unique.

Fred hanging on, camera in hand loving the rides.

The Cable Car Museum, a must to understand how they run!

'Flying' down California Street at 9.5 miles an hour