San Francisco - Part 2

I have realized that if I don't do this now, it will never happen. I apologize for taking this long to get to the vacation recap for a trip that happened over a month ago... Life has just been so crazy since we got back. If you're a regular follower of this blog, then you already know that...

Back to the trip. (For Part 1, read here.) I think I forgot to mention that we ate lunch at In & Out Burger on Friday. It was so crowded...

After that we went up to Coit Tower. It's a neat place, but there's not much to do there but look around. There's a mural all around the bottom floor, and that was cool. Coit Tower is on Telegraph Hill, one of the 7 hills in the city. From there we saw Lombard Street, the famous street that zig-zags down the hill (I say down because it's one way). After seeing it from afar, we decided to go there next. We took the bus from Coit Tower over to that area of town near Russian Hill. We probably should have picked a bus route that would take us to the top of the hill, but we didn't. We hiked up and up and up a few blocks to get to the very famous part that everyone knows. It felt like we were climbing stairs, it was so steep.

Our time at Lombard Street was very memorable. We happened to see an estate sale at 1018 Lombard Street, so we went in. We were thinking, When else will we get an opportunity to go into one of these houses? Why not? It turned out that the woman who had lived there was an artist. There were many water color paintings for sale with prices ranging from $10 to $250+. Some of them were framed, and some were not. After poking around the house, looking through some or the things for sale, we found a painting we liked. I had noticed this painting had a building in it that I had seen from the window. It looks like the lady had painted it in one of the rooms we had been in. It seemed very cool that our souvenir from our trip would be something so very unique. It is our tradition to buy wall hangings as souvenirs, so this fit right in!

Here's the painting in front of the window where it was painted:

We figured that whole stumbling on the estate sale part of our vacation was pretty unique, and then to get our souvenir there, was just gravy. Very cool. We shipped the painting home to ourselves so we wouldn't have to take care of it on the plane. It was hard enough just to walk up and down Lombard Street with it in our hands, then catch the bus and get back to the hotel. At least the UPS place was right by the hotel.

As if our trip wasn't already going great, we had our Alcatraz tour that night. We had been told that the night tour was the best, so we were pretty excited about it. The way it works is that you follow a park ranger up to the prison building (after riding the boat over, of course), and then you get a headset with the audio tour. Hubby and I pushed play at the same time so we'd be together on the tour. It's really cool. It tells you as you go to find different things, and the people who were there tell about whatever it is. They actually have former prisoners and guards on the recordings. Once the audio tour ended, we were on our own to explore.

At one end of the island is the power plant, and at the other is the light house. The light house end of the island is where the guards lived. That's where we were when our adventure really began. It was so windy and cold, it was rather unpleasant to be out there. We saw a staircase that led down from where we were to a sidewalk that lead down and around the building. It was blocked off, and obviously not safe to use. We found another way to get down there, a round about way, so we went down that way to see where that sidewalk would lead. There was no one else in sight, and we kept wondering if we were even allowed to go that way. Seagulls' nests were everywhere. It was obvious that those birds were not used to sharing their space. We even had one seagull squacking at us, blocking the sidewalk, protecting her two chicks. The chicks were gray all over, and not as big as the mama seagull, but they looked like they were almost old enough to learn to fly. Anyway, we mustered up our courage and ran past her. The further we went down that walk, the more we wondered if we were supposed to go there. We were the only people in sight. It was eerie.

The sidewalk led to a concrete staircase that went back up toward the prison building. We went up it, and it led to an iron door. (Are you getting how spooky this was? It was foggy, windy, and we were on ALCATRAZ! The only living things we could see were the seagulls all over the place.) We went in the door, and found ourselves in the rec yard of the prison (pictured below). It was so very creepy. Al Capone was there, once upon a time. The Birdman, Robert Stroud was there. On July 17, 2009, we were there. And it was so spooky.

I think that if our trip had ended there, we'd have been satisfied. But it didn't. It got better!!

On Saturday, we rented bikes and rode from Fisherman's Wharf, over the Golden Gate Bridge, to Sausalito and then all the way to Tibouron. Summing it up in once sentence really doesn't do the experience justice. It was so very satisfying. The whole day we kept saying to each other how we felt like we were accomplishing something. And we did. It wasn't easy. As bike rides go, it wasn't too hard, but it was work. I had some trouble with my bike chain, and Hubby had to fix it a couple times. I think I ate the best lunch of my life that day. We ate in Sausalito at a very quaint little restaurant. We had a pizza with pesto sauce, spinach, tomatoes, garlic and pine nuts. YUM! It wasn't just that the food was good, we had biked 8 miles to get there, and we were HUNGRY! We toyed with the idea of taking the ferry from Sausalito, and skipping the rest of the bike ride to Tibouron, but opted to press on. And the ride from Sausalito to Tibouron ended up being the prettiest part of the trip, and very worthwhile.

That's all we could handle that day.

Sunday was our last day to spend in sight-seeing in San Francisco. That morning we rented a car and went to Muir Woods. Hubby had earned a voucher for a free rental from his business travel back in 2007 and 2008. Muir Woods is a redwood forest. It was neat to see. We spent a couple hours there. Once we got back to the city, there was only one place left on our list of things to see, and that was Alamo Park. That's where the famous row houses are from the opening of the sitcom "Full House". They're called the Seven Painted Ladies.

We had a fun time sitting in Alamo Park. There were some "kids" there in the park, maybe about 10 or so, drinking beer, playing guitars, and one was playing a sousaphone. They were playing a Weezer song at one point. We enjoyed that. It was just so very appropriate for San Francisco.

We had dinner that evening in the Italian district. Then we flew home on Monday morning.

And that was the BEST VACATION we've ever taken... so far...