Sunday's Child

SF Day 3: Photos

SF Day 3: Fisherman's Wharf

Well, I'm a pro at riding BART now. I waited a little later to leave the hotel this morning, so the train wasn't jam packed with people commuting to work, and I paid for the right parking spot number. The secret to blending in on the train is to wear your earbuds and listen to music on your iPhone, and either apply makeup or stare blankly like you have no soul. Just two stops away from the sketchy part of town I got off in yesterday is a nice part of town where I started from this morning. I transferred to a bus to ride over to The Palace of Fine Arts and it went straight through Chinatown, where riding the bus is apparently THE thing to do, no matter what time of day. The little old Asian ladies gave me the gimlet eye the whole way, even though I wasn't doing anything wrong, as far as I know!

I walked all around The Palace of Fine Arts taking photos, and then sat on a bench for a while and watched the ducks and swans swim around the pond. It was chilly, breezy and almost but not quite raining a little, so after about 30 minutes I was ready to move on.

Fisherman's Wharf was the next stop on my list. I found the musee mecanique, which is a warehouse full of old coin operated games and machines. I'll post the photos in the next post (they are on my phone and typing is easier on the iPad) - can anyone tell me why you'd ever pay 25 cents to see Susie dance the can-can??

Next, I stopped at Boudin for lunch. They make sourdough bread on site, and their clam chowder bread bowl is renowned. The bread was excellent. The chowder was average. I've had better in Boston.

From there, I walked down to pier 39 to see the sea lions. There were about five of them hanging out and posing for pictures, and about fifty tourists obligingly snapping away. I overheard conversations about sea lions in English, French, German and Chinese. People are just suckers for animals, I guess.

After that it was back to the bus stop to go find Art Fibers, which is a really neat yarn shop. The bus went back through Chinatown - what a nightmare! The whole thing was full after two stops, but at least a dozen more people pushed their way on at every stop after that!! About the time I was certain we were going to be on the evening news for crushing someone to death, we got to my stop. Luckily I was seated by the door, so only about a dozen people had to get off to let me out. Glad there won't be any more bus riding on this trip!

Art Fibers was awesome, and had pettable swatches of every yarn in the shop. They design and dye all their own yarns, and they had one kind made from yak fur, and one made from paper fiber! I had a hat pattern with me, and I got the yarn to make two, because I fell in love with two different yarns and couldn't bear to leave either behind.

Then, it was off to the BART station which was fortunately only a short downhill walk away (my feet are killing me!). I grabbed dinner at the in-n-out burger, which I consider to be a requirement for any trip to California.

Tomorrow will be the Golden Gate Bridge, Muir Woods, and Saucilito, then the Eddie Izzard show tomorrow night.

Fiddler's Green Pic

Fiddler's Green

Catching up with a story from last night... I read a bunch of the restaurant reviews on Trip Advisor for the places near my hotel, and settled on Fiddler's Green, which is an Irish pub owned and run by very sweet people that are actually from Ireland. Apparently 6:30 in the evening is senior citizens hour down at the pub - the place was full of elderly Irish couples, which was very entertaining. They gossip a lot, and really loudly so it was easy to eavesdrop.

If I had been ten minutes earlier, I could have gotten Irish breakfast for dinner! Oh well. I settled for a nice piece of grilled salmon with rice pilaf and grilled veg. It was very good, but the best part was the bread, oh the bread! Fresh brown soda bread with sweet cream butter. Mmmmmmmmm.

Photos for SF Day 2

SF Day 2: Golden Gate Park

After taking advantage of the nice breakfast that the hotel provides, I started the day's adventures with several "public transportation" experiences. San Francisco is a public transit city - if you drive your car downtown, it may cost you $50 a day to park! There is a BART station about a mile from my hotel though, so I headed there. Only $1 per day for parking - much better. I would like to suggest an improvement to their computer system at the rail station though. There are signs telling you to remember the number of your parking spot so you can pay your dollar for the correct spot to a machine inside the station. The numbers on the parking spots are four digits. The number that the kiosk accepts is three digits. WTH? Six months from now a parking citation will probably find its way to me because my spot was 2772 and by the time I walked to the kiosk the numbers had mixed in my head, so I think I paid for 227. Ah, well. I'll write it down tomorrow.

Let me say, I am not a fan of the commuter trains. Some of the stations are poorly lit, the information desk guy was rude and 100% deserved the withering look of death I gave him, and I do not like the screechy/screamy sound that the trains make in the tunnels.

I did a little better figuring out the Muni system of buses and street cars in the city. I bought a three-day unlimited ride passport when I was at the airport, and that worked out well today. I even figured out how to make the rear bus doors open (after watching a nine year old girl, who was traveling by herself, do it).

My first touristy stop this morning was Steiner street to see the Painted Ladies. We have some Full House fans in my family and the six houses were featured in the show's opening credits. I was there pretty early in the day, so there weren't too many people in the park across the street, which makes photos easier. There were a few people letting their dogs run in the park, but that's it. I saw a lot of cool dogs today.

After that, I hopped back on the bus and went to Golden Gate Park. The Conservatory of Flowers is near the edge of the park, so I made that my next stop. There was a film crew on the lawn shooting a scene for a movie. They had two trained dogs, and they were trying to get them to both carry a stick at the same time as they ran through the flower gardens. I spent some time in the conservatory, shooting macro botanicals. They have some really neat plants, including a raised pool with water lilies and lily pads.

After that, I walked a little further into the park and found the Japanese Tea Garden. It's right in the middle of everything, surrounded by fairly busy streets, but it still feels verey calm and peaceful when you're in the garden.

My initial plan was to go from there out to the Golden Gate Bridge, but my feet were just too tired at that point. I'm back at the hotel, having a bit of a lie-down, and figuring out where to go for dinner. I will have another chance to see the bridge on Saturday. Pics from today to follow in the next post. Hopefully my paragraph breaks come through this time!

Fish Taco!

Cloudy California

I have been occasionally checking the golden gate bridge webcam (goldengatecam.com) over the past two weeks to try and get an idea of when the notorious July fog might let up and allow for good bridge viewing (answer: maybe in August!), so it wasn't a huge surprise when my flight from Houston was delayed by an hour due to a "low cloud ceiling" at SFO. Man, they weren't kidding! It was very cloudy yesterday afternoon, but I headed over to Half Moon Bay after picking up the rental car and checking in to my hotel anyway. I think HMB is best described as "quaint." You drive over low green mountains to get there, on twisty roads with vegetation and trees growing right up to the edge of the pavement, and no shoulders. It reminded me of a very tame section of the Road to Hana in Hawaii. I had dinner at Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, which overlooks the beach. Very good fish taco - I will attempt to upload a photo from my phone. They have outside seating on their patio, and the locals like to bring their dogs. Really neat, but a little too chilly for me, even with the heaters they had set up. I chose to sit in the dining room instead. I had forgotten about the produce in California. They must keep the best stuff here and export the rest to Texas. Freshest, best looking tomatoes, avocados, cabbage, etc. I have had in a long time. After dinner I took my camera and walked down to the fishing pier at the little marina. It was way too cloudy and cold to make sunset worth sticking around for, but I enjoyed taking some photos of the shore and an opportunistic brown pelican that was begging for fish bits from the few people fishing on the pier. Today, I head into SF to check out Golden Gate Park, and the bridge. It's cloudy this morning, but might clear off some this afternoon.

Photos are up!

All the Maui photos have been edited, and the "keepers" are posted to SmugMug and captioned.  Enjoy!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

As my flight took off from Kahului, there was a huge rainbow on the side of the mountain right outside my window.  There were four screeching babies on my very full flight from Honolulu to Houston.  Ugh.  Every time I would drift off to sleep, I would get that "fake falling" sensation and jerk back awake again.  I probably only got thirty minutes of sleep.  The flight landed half an hour early though, and my checked bag made it, which I consider a small miracle since it had to change airlines with me in Honolulu.

After a short stop in Conroe to sort out my car situation, collect my dog, and share stories and souvenirs, I made it back to Houston.  I slept about fourteen hours last night, trying to catch up, and today I feel mostly back to normal.

Pictures from the first day in Maui are uploaded to SmugMug and captioned.  More will continue to come online as I sort through and edit them.  Click here if you just can't wait any longer.