Route 49?

[j minnich]

>Had lunch with a friend from the Bay Area yesterday who told me that 
>there is a road or route 49 (mile highway?) circling San Francisco which 
>is used for sightseeing, tours of the landscape, pretty scenery, etc (49 
>stops on the tour?).  The route is not actually 49 miles but that's what 
>people call it there she said .   Anybody know of it?  I might have some 
>of the details wrong...
>
>
>
>Richard Romeo
>
>

I think the signs actually read "49 mile scenic tour."  You see 'em in San
Francisco, along coastal Hwy 1, and maybe also along the ridge crests over
here in the East Bay, but I'm not real sure of that.  It's certainly not
"route 49," and I've never followed it intentionally or tried to clock it's
length.   I think the misnamed "fisherman's wharf" is included in the 49
mile drive.  FW is misnamed in the same sense that "Blackfriar's Bridge" in
London (of which Melville wrote something like: not many a black friar but
many a pickpocket had crossed it) was misnamed.  I'm too lazy to look the
passage up, but it's either in Moby-Dick or Pierre or The Confidence Man,
unless I'm wrong.   -j minnich