On this Independence Day in San Fransisco we went down to the wharf, along with the rest of the city. We took the street car again to the last stop on the wharf where we toured ships from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The oldest ship we boarded was the Balclucha; it was a ship built in Scotland in the 1880s used for grain trade. The wife of the captain had lived on the ship; she had decorated rooms in Victorian style as if it were a housen. A seaman named John Masefield said, "I saw those sailing seamen cotton-clad, housed in wet kennels, worm-fed, cheated, driven, three pounds a month, and small delight they had, save the bright water and the winds of heaven."
The next ship we climbed on was the Eureka! (I put an exclamation point at the end of the sentence because you can't say Eureka without being excited.) The Eureka! was one of the last steam ships to sail. It was so tiny; I couldn't imagine living on a ship for months. The steam ship is still run about three times a year so they know it still runs. In 1905 the secretary of sailers, said, "In jail my bunk would be no narrower, my food no worse nor I more lonely than in the forecastle."
We went to Ghirardelli Square to find a place to stop for lunch and ended up with free chocolate. Afterwards we visited a World War Two ship and submarine built by Rosie the Riveter. We took a tour of the submarine; it was so small. I had to walk sideways to get past some of the machinery. I learned that during the war eighty men called that submarine home for up to seventy days. The submarine mostly moved on the surface of the water because it was ten times faster than going underwater.
The World War Two ship was built out of mass produced materials in sixty days; it is colossal. It is a survivor of Normandy and after fifty years returned to Normandy for a sort of "reunion." We were able to go down four levels to the engine. The engine still runs and the ship goes out to sea every so often. It was such a great experience to be able to absorb that history.
We were so crazed after seeing an actual World War Two battle ship that we had ice cream before dinner. It was delicious. We sat on the curb and listened to live music while finishing our waffle cones. We finally decided to return to our condo and walked through the crowded Independence Day streets. We walked through China Town and stopped at the Fortune Cookie Factory. (We got free fortune cookies!) They were making the cookies by hand and one of the workers were taking them off the cookie press and folding them to look like fortune cookies; it took all of a second and was way cool.
It is our last night in San Fransisco. We have to get up very early tomorrow in order to get through LA. Tomorrow night we will be at Oceanside.
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