Memories from San Francisco

Ryan had to go to San Francisco for about 10 days a couple of weeks ago. So I went to "pick him up" at the end of his business trip and bring him home.

San Francisco is a pretty unique place. I would have to venture to say that it is one of the only places that I found myself buying a winter coat and scarf on a July evening in California.

We had a whirl wind trip and here are some photos from our time in the "San Francisco treat".

When I arrived on Thursday, Ryan had to work the day so I got into our hotel room and did what any women would do - Go shopping. I had strategically booked a hotel room in the shopping district.

The first night we jumped on the cable car and headed down to "Fisherman's Wharf" and walked around the pier area. Here we could see Alcatraz, as you can see below, we also so the sea lions playing at the pier, and we had the great sour dough bread with some fresh soup. It was a very cold night, and here is where I bought my coat.

The next day we walked, and walked and walked some more. I think we walked for like 10 hours. This is a typical trip for the Hewletts. So we started off the day by going and seeing Grace Cathedral. Which of course is on the top of a hill. San Francisco is up and down all the time, thus causing one to be hot on one street and then cool on the next street.

We then headed off to "Alamo Square". For any of you children of the 80's, you may recall at the beginning of "Full House" when they taped them in the park with the nice houses behind them, this is that spot. We went to see the "Painted ladies", which are the row of houses that have become many post cards from San Francisco.

We then headed off to the "Hippie" center of San Francisco in the 70's, where Janis Joplin lived and the Grateful dead. This is known as Haight/ Asbury area. This place is still pretty "out there" with the smell of incense on the streets, retro clothing stores with what I am sure I witnessed some people still enjoying the recreational drugs that have made this district famous. I was pretty tired by this time so we found a park that I am sure housed some suspect individuals, but at that point I didn't care and I found a place to lay back and relax.

We then carried on our journey to the Golden Gate Park, which is like the Stanley park of San Francisco. Really, really huge and lots to see and do. We went to the Shakespeare gardens which was pretty neat. We went into their massive arboretum and we walked and walked some more. We found a grassy area to have yet another rest. Inside the Golden Gate Park there is a Japanese Tea house, so we went over to see that.

We finally decided to catch a bus to make it to our dinner reservations. I had booked a dinner at a restaurant called the "Cliff House". It is directly on the Pacific ocean and it is supposed to have awesome sunsets. However, when I called they did not tell me that it is their foggy season and that we would probably not see the sun at all, let alone setting. It was a pretty nice spot though, and we did see a guy propose to his girlfriend.

All in all, we had a great day. After dinner we hopped back on the bus which took us right to our hotel where we were glad to kick off the sneakers and soak our feet in a hot bath.