Los Hobos Invade San Francisco

Thanksgiving in the City by The Bay

Once or twice a year some fun seekers we know all try to get together and go somewhere special together. We jokingly refer to ourselves as the "Los Hobos".  This is never an easy event to arrange as all of the folks involved have active careers with demanding clients, kids in college, and "to do" lists from hell. 


But somehow it all works out.

Next week we are heading to San Francisco to spend a few days at Thanksgiving. We have some pretty good stuff planned. Segway tours, good food, the new academy of sciences (Steinhart Aquarium - feeding the penguins!), Thanksgiving dinner at McCormick and Kuleto's in Ghirardelli Square, tree lighting at Union Square, the Tadich Grill, rides on the Cable Cars, really good Chinese food, and of course, an evening at Beach Blanket Babylon at the Club Fugazi.

For me this will be kind of like a sweet visit to my past as my Grandmother always made sure we made the trip across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco every year just before the holidays. To us San Francisco was always simply referred to as "The City". And it was. Back then women in SF always wore white gloves and hats. People shopped at I Magnins and The Emporium. 


We would go see the department store windows, take a walk down Maiden Lane, and, of course, stop in to see the beautiful decorations and smell the Christmas trees at the Podesta Baldocchi florist shop on Grant Street (it is the florist where Kim Novak shopped in Hitchcock's Vertigo).


We'd finish each trip with a visit to The City of Paris department store (now absorbed oddly - blame the late Phillip Johnson - into a very peculiar Neiman Marcus store) to see the amazing four story Christmas tree they installed every year under the store's incredible stained glass dome.

This week we will fly into SFO and take BART, but somehow, I know "The City" will conjure up its magic for us!

Roadboy's Travels © 2009