San Francisco - Alcatraz and Bullitt

Alcatraz island is an interesting place to visit. The island is probably most well known as a prison, but it has a history much older than that. There are some very old buildings, dating from the mid 1800s. Seeing pictures is one thing but walking into the cells, seeing the park rangers demonstrate the doors opening and closing and seeing the D block with its enclosed cells was an interesting experience. Standing in ‘the hole’ where inmates were locked in solitary confinement as punishment, the darkness seemed so dark. It was also very windy on Alcatraz as I commented earlier. The wind really whipped across the island.

San Francisco is not only the location of the Dirty Harry movies, but also the location for one of the best car chases ever filmed. The movie Bullitt (1969) featured a car chase through the city streets at breakneck speed. One of the more memorial parts of the chase is seeing the massive Dodge Charger and Ford Mustang bouncing down a steeply hill in the suburbs. Well I found the same street and drove the Mustang over the same roads (not at the same speed!) as the chase from Bullitt. In some parts you cannot see anything but sky as you drive over the roads. I have videoed this and will upload it at some stage.

San Francisco - Golden State Model Railroad Club and Dirty Harry

Because I booked my hire car before I finalized my accommodation, I found I was going to need to book another car for the last few days. Because I had not been able to book an old car to do my Route 66 day trip I began looking at options. In the end I settled on a Ford Mustang Hardtop because it was a lot cheaper than the Corvette and Camaro. When I went to pick the car up I found it did not have a GPS, so I ‘had’ to upgrade to the convertible. A real shame hey?

After getting the car I headed out to the Golden State Model Railroad Club. They had a lot more on show than the GGMRC, with three different exhibits in three different scales. There was not a lot of members around, so one of the exhibits had a lot of trains running and the others were a little light on. Still the scenery was quite impressive, particularly on the ‘O’ scale exhibit (‘O’ scale = 1:48).

Next on my list of things to do was see one of the scenes from the Dirty Harry movies. I ended up choosing the Cross at Mt Davidson park because it was probably the easiest identified and also less likely to have changed in the 30+ years since the movie was released. I was surprised to discover it was on top of a hill, which was not obvious in the movie as the scene was shot at night. It also offered views of the city as well.





Blue 2011 Ford Mustang Convertable





Overall of the Golden State Model Railroad Club.





'O' Scale exhibit





'HO' Scale Exhibit





'N' Scale Exhibit



The cross at Mount Davidson park - Featured in the movie Dirty Harry (1971)



Me under the cross.

San Francisco - Golden Gate Model Railroad Club, Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Point.

Last stop on my adventure was San Francisco. So many things to see here in San Francisco. There was a couple of model railroad clubs I wanted to see as well as Alcatraz and maybe visit a few scenes from the movie Dirty Harry.

First up was the Golden Gate Model Railroad club. This is a club I found on the internet back when I was in year 7 or 8 back in 1993 or 94. I probably came with unrealistic expectations so I was a little disappointed with what I saw. It wasn’t that it was unfinished or poor quality, just it wasn’t as big as I expected. Still it was good to see it. The club was located in the basement of the Randell Museum, which was located on the side of a hill and offered nice views of San Francisco.

After the GGMRC I headed to the Golden Gate bridge. For some reason I couldn’t seem to get the theme song to Full House out of my head as I looked at the bridge. Its an impressive bridge, although it is not the largest bridge in San Francisco I believe it is the oldest one.

There is also Fort Point located at the bottom of the bridge, which was built in the mid 1800 as a defence point for San Francisco Harbour. One thing I discovered but wasn’t aware of was how windy San Francisco could be. The wind was very strong and also quite cold. I think the warmest it got during my time in SF was mid 20s (50s - 60s).I also wasn’t aware of the amount of low level cloud in SF. The second time I drove over the GG bridge (this time with the camera mounted and rolling) the low lying cloud all but obliterated the bridge from view.











Golden Gate Model Railroad Club



SF seen from the Randel Museum



Note the low lying cloud



Golden Gate Bridge



Under the Golden Gate Bridge



Alcatraz as seen from the pier near the Golden Gate Bridge



Fort Point



The Golden Gate bridge towers over Fort Point



Me in front of the Golden Gate Bridge

California State Railroad Museum

The next stop was the California State Railroad museum in Sacramento. Here the thing I came to see was the only remaining cab forward steam engine in America. The museum was all inside unlike Steamtown at Scranton, however the lighting was useless for photography unless you had a SLR camera like mine. It was interesting to hear about how the Railroads got their start over here in America, and particularly the problems they had with snow. In some cases they built massive long snow tunnels to keep the tracks clear. Imagine being a tunnel for a hours and hours with nothing to see out the window. I also had a look in the Dinner car they had on display. Through the 50s and 60s different Railroad companies in America had Dinner cars on their passenger trains.

Yosemite National Park

After San Diego, it was on to Yosemite National Park. I took the drive over the mountains in from the east side early in the morning. The road I took over from the east side is called Tioga Pass Road and I found out was only opened for a few months of the year through summer as it was covered in snow most of the year. As I climbed over the mountains the temperature dropped quite a bit and then rose again as I descended into Yosemite Valley. The valley is a narrow, (maybe only a few miles wide) and the sheer rock faces on each side are rather impressive. I was lazy and only did the short walk to Bridemist falls which is located down the south end of the valley. There was not much water flowing over it and so the wind was blowing the falls all over the side of the mountain. It looked quite impressive.







A few shots driving over Tioga Pass to the park. To the right of the third picture you can see the Half Dome.





Inside the park







Here you can see the falls and how the wind is blowing the water around.