18 July: San Francisco  (cont)
Today had been set aside for the Hiller Aviation Museum. But first a trip to the local post office to post home my summer clothes and footwear. Have no need for either and don't want to run the risk of excess baggage on Thursday.
Dialled up an Uber and off we went way out past the airport. We are totally smitten with uber and see it as the stepping stone to fleets of computerised cars.Taxi drivers will disappear into the history books.
The museum was superb and is running wonderful children's holiday programmes with uni students and retired folk entertaining groups of youngsters. Soooo  well organised.  There was the very first section on women pilots that I have ever seen. Perhaps  20 women from Amelia Earhart on had attractive panels of their history and achievements displayed with intrresting photos .How revolutionary!!! We know Earhart and Jean Batten and that's your lot. Oh, no, no, no. So many more who have received awards such as the Croix de Guerre. Katherine Stinson and her sisters and brother set up the Stinson aircraft company which they ran very successfully until they sold out to the Piper Company. I was fascinated by all their stories none of which I had come across before. There was also a huge working model railway exhibition of European trains. I ranked this museum top of all the ones I have visited over the years.
We then whistled up another uber to get us back into the CBD to fill in the time before we went on our evening dinner cruise. Hmmmm! What to do? The uber we got asked if we were prepared to go on uber pool which meant he picked up another fare. We had all the time in the world so picked up a Grandma from the domestic terminal and took her to her home. Well, what a gem of a trip that was, and all at no extra cost. It took us to suburbs we have not seen. It turned out to be a free conducted tour through the best districts in San Fran. WOW! The houses were gob-smacking with views to match. Very eventually we got to Golden Gate Park but too late to do the Science Museum. Never mind, we had had this amazing free trip through  Nob's Hill, saved $60 by not being allowed into the museum, used our $1 bus ticket ( which we have now learned gives us travel all day) to get back into Union Square for coffee and cake, then caught our F tram to get to Fishman's Wharf for our cruise. We're getting the hang of it all now.
The cruise was excellent taking us under the Bridge where 2 whales were playing. Apparently 10 came in last week but 8 of them have moved on now . The buffet was excellent and the Spanish bubbles just topped it all off nicely thanks
So, there's just one more day to go which we're
spending at Silicon Valley.