Our last day in San Francisco we discovered a rocketship on Pier 14 near the Ferry Building. This distinctive piece of public art is a 40 foot rocket built by Black Rock Arts.
Raygun Gothic Rocketship
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Monthly Archives: May 2012
USS PAMPANITO
We were visiting San Francisco with my dad to attend a reunion of the submariners that served on the Triton Submarine. My dad was on the first submarine to circumnavigate the world submerged, the USS Triton SSRN/SSN-586. This submarine is not his. The keynote speakers of the reunion have worked tremendously hard to restore this sub, the WWII USS Pampanito on Fisherman’s Wharf. It was kind of cool that because we had our reunion badges on, we were allowed to tour for free! And to make it even better, the Bless of the Ships was happening in the harbor, so there were all kinds of water craft circling around. And it was 70 degrees and sunny! Really, I had a moment 🙂
While touring the USS Pampanito, I couldn’t help but to wonder what life must have been like for the men out at sea. There is practically no private area except the head! One of the keynote speaker told the tale of rescuing 73 mostly Australian sailors that were lost at sea. Really, I can’t get my mind around where they put an extra 73 men!
http://www.maritime.org/pamphome.htm
 
Musee Mecanique
 
San Francisco’s Musee Mecanique at Pier 45 at Fisherman’s Wharf is “one of the world’s largest privately owned collections of mechanically operated musical instruments and antique arcade machines.” It is fascinating and free. We happily whiled away the better part of an hour playing games and watching amusements from our youth and earlier.
http://www.museemechanique.org/
  
  
The Letterman Digital Arts Center
Last week we took a four day jaunt down to San Francisco to meet up with my dad. While there we investigated the Letterman Digital Arts Center at One Letterman Drive in the Presidio. The center is the headquarters for Industrial Light & Magic, LucasArts and some of Lucasfilm’s. We made a brief visit, since we could only park for 1/2 hour, but we did get to see the Yoda Statue, a full sized Darth Vader and the amazing view. We even stopped at their Starbucks for a quick cup of coffee. It must be wonderful to work in such an amazing environment!
 