Today we have the letter “C” in our A to Z excursion and Coit Tower fits the bill. This is another one of those places that I have not explored very well, only having been here twice, once at night when the tower was closed and once during the day for a quick drive by.
Pretty close to the drawing isn’t it?
In fact, I didn’t even know until reading about it for this post that you can go inside the tower and see some beautiful murals around the base, which is free to all visitors. Unfortunately, right now it is still closed because of Covid (stupid Covid) but you could also take guided tours when it is open and see the view through the observation deck at the top for a minimal charge.
The tower sits atop Telegraph Hill and some parking is available or you can park at the bottom and walk up the winding path. The views are spectacular, offering a 360 degree vision of the city and the surrounding counties. We just drove by on the day that I took these pictures and unfortunately I didn’t get any of the view from here. Another reason to go back for sure.
Coit Tower was built between 1932 and 1933 and named for Lillie Hitchcock Coit who was the benefactress of the construction. Lillie was an eccentric woman and apparently had a love of firefighters so this tower is dedicated to the volunteer firefighters who died fighting fires in San Francisco. Some think the tower resembles the nozzle on the end of a firehose. Occasionally the city changes the colors of the lights in tribute to different things, such as all orange for when the Giants were winning the World Series or rainbow colors for LGBTQ pride, red, white and blue for 4th of July, red and green at Christmas, etc.
Another “C” is Cobbs Comedy Club. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the television program “Cash Cab” but it used to be a favorite of ours and when I saw that Ben Bailey, the star of the show, was coming to San Francisco I had to get us tickets. We had never been to Cobbs Comedy Club before but the tickets were very reasonable and we ended up having such a good time that when Mr. Bailey came around again later in the year we went and saw the show again! This time he was standing outside afterward and I was able to get a picture of him with my husband. He is very tall! My hubby is 6 feet. We got his autograph on a DVD too!
Cobbs has been around since 1982 although it was in a different part of the city for a while. A fire caused them to move to their current location on Columbus Avenue. The venue is small, only 400 seats, and it is first come first served so we got there early enough to get good seats all three times. It is a short walk from a parking garage if you can’t find parking in the blocks surrounding it. The prices were very reasonable (at least they were when we went) and they do serve food if you want.
We also saw Rosanne Barr there. She was pretty funny too. Unfortunately, one of the policies is no picture taking so the shots I got were on the sly and not very good. Still, they are enough for me to remember the evening and make some scrapbook pages.
There are a few other “C” things I could have described like Crissy Field and Cable Cars but I made a “rule” for myself that I wouldn’t just take pictures from the internet for the things I was writing about. I mean anyone can Google Cable Cars and come up with some information. I want to be able to talk about the experiences I had and show you what it looked like from my perspective. So if you wanted Cable Cars or Crissy Field, I’m sorry about that.
Okay, that’s all I have. Hope you come back tomorrow for “D.”
Disclaimer notice. The coloring book pages are from the inserts the San Francisco Chronicle put out and I mentioned them in my theme reveal so you can go to that to get the info about the artists if you are interested. I did the coloring. The pictures were taken by me. Thanks to our daughter for driving me around to take pictures for this.
Janet's Smiles 
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We were big fans watching Cash Cab snd whenever we went into the city I looked At all the cabs hoping to get picked up. Hubby would have been good at the trivia.
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I wondered if there could be a way to tell from the outside. It was a fun show.
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I figured if I saw someone filming I’d found them. 😂
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That is one very tall comedian! I love a smaller venue, so much more atmospheric and you get to interact with the comedian too – well worth getting there early to ensure good seats.
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Yes, he is very nice too.
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I left a comment last night – it must have disappeared 😦
I was wondering if only tourists were riding the Cable Car?
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You were in my pending pile. Guess WP doesn’t know we are friends yet – LOL
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Hey! I have been to that tower once! 🙂 I didn’t go up, but I remember the murals, and the walk up and down was really nice 🙂
The Multicolored Diary
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Yes! I’m looking forward to going back again.
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We used to have an annual meeting in Atlanta, and usually the last night we would have an outing to the Punch Line, our local comedy club. We got to see Tim Allen when he was just coming up. He had us rolling in the aisles….
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That must have been fun.
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Oh, it was. The meetings were weeklong boozefests…
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I am pretty sure Coit Tower was one of our drive-by sights when we did the informative and entertaining “Hop on, Hop off Bus Tour”, because the story of Lillie and the firefighters sounds familiar.
So you want to tell me that you live in San Francisco and never ride the Cable Car? Is this a touristy thing to do, or do you just go places by car? But then again, where do you park? I find Downtown parking either expensive or impossible (parallel parking on steep hills? WHY???)
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Truthfully, Tamara, until I started driving our son to work last September my experiences in San Francisco were very few and far between. When we would go places, we would take BART in and then walk to our destination. Otherwise we’d drive in and park in one of the parking garages. I can’t remember ever riding a Cable Car, so I guess that’s going on my list too! YES those hills!!!!
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💗💗
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Thanks!
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Interesting. I’ve only been to a few comedy clubs, with varying degrees of laughs. Never heard of Cash Cab, but that’s nothing new. I’m always behind the times.
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Actually it’s an old show, set in New York City. Kind of like a trivia game. Unsuspecting people get in a cab and Ben asks them questions on the way to wherever they are going. If they answer the questions right, they win money. Three wrong answers and he tosses them out of the cab, even if they are not where they want to go! It is pretty interesting. Of course I try to answer the questions too.
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These sound like great experiences, Janet.
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Yes. Now I really want to go to the tower to see the murals when it opens. Thank goodness for working from home since I can do things like that in the middle of the week with no crowds.
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I have no time to do anything during the working day at the moment, Janet. Covid has made accountants very busy it seems.
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You have a good attitude to photographs on your posts. I have a similar picture of my 6′ 2″ son standing with John Eales, the former Australian rugby captain 🙂
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Great! We did not realize how tall he was since we only saw him on the Cash Cab where he is driving all the time – LOL
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We have only seen Coit Tower from a distance so that is another city spot on our list.. And we finally checked off Crissy field on a recent day trip to the city
And so cool you got to see and meet Ben Bailey (we love the cash cab show too!)
Circumlocution or Circling Around to the Point Cleverly (Finally?)
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We saw Crissy Field the other day as I was gathering pictures for a different letter but I didn’t get good enough views for it so I didn’t take any.
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And Ben Bailey was really nice. I didn’t know he was a stand up comic in addition to being the Cash Cab guy!.
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That drawing is an accurate representation of the photo! (I enjoy colouring too and have a few of my completed pages on my blog.) https://suestrifles.wordpress.com/tag/colouring/
Thank you for visiting my A to Z, Janet.
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It was the coloring pages that gave me the idea for the A to Z, especially after I had started going to the city every day to take my son to work. So many places I’ve heard of but never really seen and some new to me stuff too! It’s been fun.
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It’s been too long since I’ve been to San Francisco. I’ll have to get there again real soon!
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It really is lovely and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that!
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I think I may have pictures of Coit Tower from my visit to San Francisco. Is there a park around the tower? It’s possible I’m thinking of another location. It’s been such a long time since that trip. Weekends In Maine
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There is a walkway up to it that is tree lined so maybe that’s what you remember.
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OH, I forgot all about Cash Cab! I loved that show! I didn’t realize he was so tall. That was nice to have a driver while you took photos. SF isn’t the easiest place to drive. Many, many years ago it’s where my mother learned to drive.
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I can’t imagine trying to learn to drive in the city. Not only all the one way streets but those hills!
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I love the smaller venues for comedy shows! 🙂
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Yes, it is a great one!
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Janet this is so cool! I feel like I’m on vacation. One of these days I’d like to go back. I was only 12 the first and only time we went to San Francisco. I don’t remember much beyond a fisherman’s wharf. Even that is fuzzy. This is more off the beaten path. Just awesome 🤩
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I’m so glad you like it. I was wondering if it was going to be boring. I may have something coming up that you may remember 🙂
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Ooooo have you been to all the places that you’ll be posting about? I like how you have a colouring page for each day hehe
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Yes, I will have been to the place or I won’t write about it! Some may not have coloring pages, but the ones that I can will.
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Ooooo awesome!
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