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09-09-2026 San Francisco Maritime Museum and Visitor Center, Hyde Street Pier, The Buena Vista Bar and Restaurant

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We visited all three places today.  Today, Lisa has a prior commitment, which means Barry is my chauffeur for the day. We plan to visit the Maritime Museum area and the Visitor Center. This is something he is interested in and visiting today makes sense.  We found parking just up the street from the museum. The museum is free since it's part of the Golden Gate National Park system. The walls are all painted with colorful murals. The exhibits cover the history of ships being buried under the old Yerba Buena area, with dioramas and a part of a ship's hull. Viewing and touching the ship's hull was cool. The dioramas are detailed and give you a good idea of what the area looked like before the shoreline was filled in to provide more land. There was also an exhibit about a man named Kenichi Horie , who sailed alone from Japan to San Francisco in 1962 at age 23. He has made numerous trips by himself. His last was in 2022 at 83 years old. The boat he used for his original trip, t...

09-08-2026 Golden Gate Welcome Center, Round House Cafe, Presidio, Palace of Fine Arts, Crissy Field East Beach

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Today's Route We packed a lot into today, as you can see from the directions and map above. The weather was beautiful again today. The temps were in the 80s. There were far fewer people everywhere than on Monday.  We started out the day by parking in a lot about 1/4 mile from the Golden Gate Welcome Center . The walk was so nice, with views of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Welcome Center was awesome. We checked out all the goodies for sale, and got our Passport books stamped. The Rangers were very informative.  View from the Hiking Trail from the parking lot to Golden Gate Welcome Center If you're familiar with this area, you know the Round House Cafe has been next to the bridge forever. I had to Google it to see how long:   88 years , having originally opened on May 27, 1938, a year after the bridge opened.  I have always wanted to get a coffee from there, and Lisa was game.  Luckily, this area wasn't nearly as packed as it was  yesterday. I bought two cro...