Getting Past the Troll at Coit Tower?🧌🌉

"Coit Tower (also known as Coit Memorial Tower) is a 210-foot (64 m) tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, overlooking the city and San Francisco Bay. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built between 1932 and 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's bequest to beautify the city of San Francisco. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 29, 2008."

Once we had escaped Alcatraz Island, we had spotted Coit Tower and since we had planned to go to the top of the tower at some point on our stay in San Francisco, my son suggested that we walk from the pier to the tower, as he knew a short cut to get there.

Alcatraz the Unescapable Island? 👮🏝🚨

But he didn't tell me that it involved a shipload of stair climbing to get to the foot of the tower.

I had to ask him the question that had been on my mind since arriving in the USA the day before with all the walking he had made me do, "are you trying to kill me to get my unit for you and your brother to sell?!";-)

Welcome to the USA?🛫🛬

These couple of days were full of the most walking I had done all year combined and I had visions of dying on this climb up the stairs to Coit Tower, because I had overestimated my fitness and heart health.

I couldn't help thinking I was going to be another old Aussie like Simon Crean, who died while on an overseas walk, because I thought I was fitter and healthier than I was -

Former Labor leader Simon Crean
 dies aged 74

Simon Crean?!

I think my son was starting to feel guilty for bringing his old Boomer dad up the potential Stairway to Heaven ... or Hell;-)  

And to top it off, there were even watch out for coyote signs posted along this stairway. 

We did make it up the stairway without encountering any coyotes and me having a heart attack.

I was relieved that the stair climbing was over, because I knew that the 13-storey tower was just an elevator ride to the top now.

But guess what?

The elevator wasn't working this day and the only way up to the top was to use the stairs?!

There was a woman standing outside the entrance to the tower "greeting" the paying public who intended to go to the top of the tower that the elevator wasn't working today and that the only way up was the stairs. 

I half-jokingly asked this woman, who was probably a Boomer like me, only probably not a tail end Boomer like me if there was any discount on the admission price today with the elevator out of operation?  

And boy, did she give me a lecture about how the admission price had nothing to do with whether the elevator was working or not and that you were paying for the privilege of being allowed to go to the top.

I don't know how this woman got a job in tourism with her demeanor and attitude. 

She told my son and I that if we wanted to go to the top and see some paintings along the way (which I was not really interested in seeing), we had to go in a side door and pay the guy in the shop on either the ground floor or something about taking the stairs to the first floor, which just confused us even more.

My son went the wrong way thinking we had to pay on the first floor, while I went the other way and was waiting on the ground floor shop and looking at the souvenirs, I might buy on the way down ... if I lived that was;-)

I was wondering where the hell my son had gotten to, as he had my money, and I was meant to be paying for us both.

I walked around the corner to see him waiting near the out of order elevator doors and ready to walk up to the first floor, when the troll turned around hearing me talking to my son when I was telling him we had to pay in the gift shop and then more or less accused us of trying to sneak past her without paying, which we could have quite easily have done if we had wanted to, as I wouldn't be talking at the top of my voice to tell my son that we had to pay on the ground floor and not the first floor.

This old bag then told me that the baseball cap I was holding in my hand had to go down the front of my jacket and I had to zip my jacket up, so I didn't touch her precious paintings on the wall as I went by them.

And she told my son to turn his backpack around and wear it on his stomach, for the same reason.

With her attitude I felt like telling this old bat what she could do with her paintings and that I didn't give one s#it about the paintings.

I just wanted to go to the top and look at the views, not look at some second-rate murals that you would have to pay me to look at.

She even gave us a lecture on how we didn't listen to her "clear as mud" directions on how and where to pay for our tickets.

I raced past those paintings on the first two floors without giving them a sideways glance and then plodded up the stairs to the top hoping not to die.

And guess what lady, that near $100 worth of $ouvenirs I had planned to buy at the beginning I decided you could stick where the sun don't shine also.

At least after getting to the top of the tower, it was all downhill and back to Fisherman's Wharf for a hot dog and a beer for lunch, before heading off to Grace Cathedral to walk the labyrinth.

My first Chilli Dog

This Blue Moon beer sucks to me,
especially when it's out of a bottle

Grace Cathedral, San Francisco

Of course, if you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans, as they say.

But that's for another post -

Walking the Grace Cathedral Labyrinth? ⛪🦶👣👼