What to do in the Bay area?

[brewman]

Heading out to the Bay area on the 18th for a week. Promised the wife we would take the trip to visit the outlaws in exchange for letting me buy the Magnum. Other than the typical tourist sites, any recommendations on things to see? Any car shows? Any good salvage yards for an old car guy from the rusty mid west?


P.S. We are flying instead of taking the Magnum cross country. I did not want the mag to end up looking like the Clark Griswald's "Family Truckster". Renting a boring mini-van.

[Gameboy]

In San Leandro (East bay) there is a car show every 2nd & 4th Thurs of the month. At san leandro K-mart parking lot.

some cool places:
-in S.F.: dinner at the Cliffhouse. (excellent view & atmosphere.) check Zagat's guide for restaurants. S.F. has world famous cuisine.
-also S.F.: S.F. Giants game, even if your not a baseball fan the park is beautiful & views & food from park are amazing.(night game recommended, bring a jacket.)
-Berkeley: grab a beer & a bite at the Pyramid Brewery. or walk Telegraph ave any Sat. afternoon for the street fair.(cheap fun, but have to deal with hippies!)
-Oakland: kind of touristy but check out Jack London Square.(great food & views plust art & wine festivals, etc..) you can get there by ferry if your in S.F., but you'll find that in the bay area your only 20-30min driving from everywhere.
-Santa Cruz: an hour drive from the bay area but worth it, Santa cruz Beach Boardwalk has: the beach (of course!) live music, good food, carnival style rides & roller coasters, a midway & beautiful oceanic views.
-Napa/sonoma: wine country, shopping. (just one for the wife!)

-hope this helps-

P.S. If you happen to run a Hybrid off the road while your out here, I wont tell!

[sidetrack]

Kart Racing in Fremont Ca.
http://www.lemanskarting.com/

http://www.lemanskarting.com/photos/83.jpg

[CoolVanilla]

Cool! Welcome to the area. Thats a pretty good list Gameboy has provided. Here are a couple more things you might want to check out:

-The Blackhawk Museum. (http://www.blackhawkmuseum.org/) This is in Blackhawk, in the East Bay, probably 40 minutes from downtown San Fran. This is one of the best collection of rare and vintage cars on the planet.

-AT&T Park (http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/sf/ballpark/index.jsp). Try and catch a Giants game. Even if you're not a baseball fan, its still a great time.

-Alcatraz (http://www.nps.gov/alcatraz/) / Pier 39 (http://www.pier39.com/). If you do one thing while here, make it this. Make sure you sample the local clam chowder in a sourdough bowl, or crab bisque...

-Katy's Korner (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g33038-d468935-Reviews-Katy_s_Korner-San_Ramon_California.html). This is a bit obscure, but if you love eggs Benedict, IMHO this place makes the best. Make sure you order the "Kady's Benedict".

There is a bunch more, but this should get ya started :wink:

[sidetrack]

East Palo Alto has a bunch of junk yards.
But don't plan on staying in town for lunch or sight seeing. The town is a high crime area.
http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=2091+Bay+Rd,+Palo+Alto,+CA+94303&ie=UTF8&ll=37.475403,-122.129323&spn=0.003712,0.010729&t=k&om=1

http://www.scada1.com/baadamem.htm

[CoolVanilla]

East Palo Alto has a bunch of junk yards.
But don't plan on staying in town for lunch or sight seeing. The town is a high crime areaUh, sup with that?

[sidetrack]

Uh, sup with that?

I guess things have gotten better.
But in the early 1990's, East Palo Alto was the "murder capital of the United States".


Six years ago, East Palo Alto was dubbed the 'murder capital of the United States.' today, crime is down -- and rents are going up.

by Vicky Anning
Related Articles:
Stanford volunteers in EastPaloAlto (http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/1998/janfeb/articles/volunteers.html)
</B>
Forty-two people shot dead in one year and all within two miles of Stanford. That was East Palo Alto in 1992. http://www.stanfordalumni.org/images/news_magazine/magazine/janfeb98/art/webster.gifTURNAROUND: Former Stanford administrator William Webster says the streets are safer today.
But since then, William Webster, a 23-year resident, has witnessed a dramatic turnaround. Neighbors now chat on streets where gun battles regularly erupted, and children play once more on corners that belonged to drug dealers. "During the day, it's perfectly safe," says Webster, who works as an administrator in Stanford's department of aeronautics and astronautics. "There's no more problem than walking through a suburban area of Palo Alto."

Webster would never have made that claim in the early 1990s. In those days, gunfire was so common that some residents slept in their bathtubs as stray bullets whistled past their windows. On New Year's Eve, police officers would cower in squad cars under freeway bridges while revelers went on shooting sprees. By 1992, the small city of 24,000 had gained notoriety as the "murder capital of the United States." Recalls Webster: "Every night as I drove home, I used to wonder if I'd make it in one piece."

At the root of the crime problem was a combination of poverty, drugs and inadequate policing. East Palo Alto had become a kind of drive-through drug store for the Bay Area, with as many as 80 percent of the buyers coming in from surrounding towns. Only one in five East Palo Alto pupils graduates from high school and 17 percent of households live below the poverty line. The city has the highest unemployment rate in San Mateo County. No wonder teen-agers were easily lured into the lucrative crack cocaine trade.

When the drug feuds and gang violence reached their peak in 1992, the media swooped in. The story was all the more compelling for its proximity to Silicon Valley and one of the wealthiest university communities in the country.

In the years that followed, homicides dropped precipitously­­to a single murder in 1996. When a new spate of violence erupted late last year, residents feared a relapse. Most outsiders, however, assumed nothing had changed. That's because the surge of publicity in the early 1990s had frozen the city's notorious image in the public mind, and few journalists stayed behind to examine the real problems or chronicle the city's efforts to solve them. Today, the airport shuttle sometimes charges an extra $10 to drop East Palo Altans at their door, and pizza parlors still won't deliver to some neighborhoods. Yet these days, residents worry as much about being priced out of their homes by Silicon Valley professionals and Stanford students as they do about being driven out by violent criminals.

[brewman]

Thanks for all of the ideas. Gameboy may be on to something. If you see an idiot at the stoplight reving the engine of his underpowered rental mini-van wanting to race ..... well ..... its probably me. I am thinking I may end up suffering from some sort of Magnum withdrawl while I am out there!

[intruder99]

Thanks for the good tips. It will be helpful to me too since I will be downtown San Francisco at the end of September for one week. The main reason is that I will attend a business conference for 3 days but I'll add 4 more to visiting and enjoying. I'll stay at 3 different Hotels in 7 days, all situated in SF city centre.

Since I won't have my Mag for 1 whole week (first time ever !) I'll try to enjoy myself with other activities including a wine tasting journey in Napa and Sonoma Valley.

If you have other suggestions specially for the Sept. 23rd - 30th period, (I will be traveling with other co-workers, so the wife will stay home... unfortunately...) :friday: :beerchug: