The old train station is down by the water because in olden tymes the train coming to San Fran from points east (Chicago and that) came out onto this causeway and rolled aboard what were for awhile the world's biggest ferry boats. Here is a very cool description of the affair with lots of pictures. (And what's with the palm trees? They don't belong within two hundred miles of here. Gadz how transplanted palm trees annoy me.)
A short walk back towards old town Benicia brings one to this odd collection of nautical cast-offs.
The bridge in the distance carries I-80 across Carquinez Strait, through which a sailor will find San Francisco Bay and eventually the open sea.
It's an interesting neighborhood, the heart of old Benicia, which at its founding was expected to become the great metropolis of the continental edge. Rivers and roads all converged here, and in fact it was the state capital for a little while. But the village of San Francisco somehow attracted the people and the business and Benicia remained a small place, renowned for shipbuilding and other things, but largely unknown outside California.
The Capitol served as such for a short time in the early 1850s, then a courthouse, a fire station, a number of other things, until finally it settled into its natural role as a Site of Historical Interest. Round back are some lovely plants from when the ancient houses nearby were not yet part of a museum. The wisteria is over a century old, but no one knows how much: taking a core seems a bit risky. Lovely, iznit.
Here are some of the random non-topical sorts of pictures we take on a nearly daily basis. Capitol pillars; flower man; biplane kite.
A rather arresting house that always catches my eye; and a bird who maintained his perch until I'd driven out onto the street. I shot a video but Blogger took too dang long to upload it so never mind.
3 comments:
When can I come for a visit?
That part about ferrying the railway passengers across the Susquehanna was cool. I regularly drive across the Tydings Bridge on the way to and from D.C., and looking east is like looking back in time 150 years, iron railroad bridges and river and trees and not another thing for miles.
I found the wreck of the Solano in the internet mapping thingie. I'm going to become one of those creepy old guys who fish off the levees from his camper shell only I'll be taking pictures of the remnants of a bygone age and writing obsessive articles on the demise of civilization that no one will buy.
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