Our Trip to San Francisco

 

 

Saturday, March 25, 2000

 

We left O’Hare Airport at 5:40pm, with a flight to Cincinnati.  We caught our connecting flight to San Francisco at 8:40pm.  The flight to San Francisco was pretty bumpy for a while, and the food service was discontinued till it cleared.  Finally, about 10:00 we were served dinner.  The rest of the flight was un-eventful.

 

We had rented a car from Dollar, and when we arrived at the counter where told they only had an 8 passenger van left.  No thank you, we need a car.  They finally found us a Dodge Neon.  We left the airport for our hotel.  After making a wrong turn, we found our hotel, the Embassy.  We finally arrived about 12:15 (pacific time).

 

Apparently, the only room available was directly above the bar!  We had our own little disco going till 2:00 am!  Dave decided to go join the party, while Karen TRIED to get to sleep.  Finally, at 2:00 the bar closed and we were able to get some sleep (it was now 4:00am OUR time).  The hotel promised to move us the next day.

 

 

Sunday, March 26, 2000

 

Slept in till 10:00 am (Chicago time).  We were told to leave our bags in our room, and they would move us during the day.  So we packed up and went to breakfast down the street at a place called Lyons (Van Ness & Turk).  After breakfast we drove down to Fisherman’s Wharf.  Since it was Sunday, we were able to find a spot on the street and park.  We walked around, booked our Alcatraz tour for Tuesday.  We walked to Pier 39, where there is a bunch of cool little shops and restaurants, and did some shopping.

 

We took an hour motorized cable car tour, past Rice-A-Roni hill, The Cannery and Gharadelli Square.  When we returned to the wharf area, we stopped for a late lunch at Fisherman’s Grotto, were we ate Fish and Chips.  We then walked over to the Cannery and then to Gharadelli Square.  When Karen’s Mom and Dad were there in 1989, they had the big earthquake.  At the time, mom and dad were in The Sharper Image at Gharadelli Square.  So we went into Sharper Image, and luck was with us….no earthquake (although Dave was hoping for one!).

 

We made our way back to our car, and drove back to our hotel.  Luckily, we were moved to the 6^th floor (top), which did not have it’s own private disco.

 

 

Monday, March 27, 2000

 

We had breakfast again at Lyons and then were picked up at our hotel by a Grey Lines bus, which took us to the transportation center for our days tour.  Today, we are going to Muir Woods and Sausalito.  Our tour bus took us out of the city and across the Golden Gate Bridge! 

 

Muir Woods was beautiful!  The Sequoia Redwoods certainly are huge.  Although we were only there for just over an hour, the sights were magnificent, and Dave got some good pictures! 

 

On our way back, we stopped in Sausalito, which is a quaint little town with several little shops.  We walked around the Marina a little, checking out the boats (yachts!).  The tour dropped us off at Pier 39.  Although the tour included return transportation to our hotel, we opted for a cab, which allowed us to stay at Pier 39 longer.  We had dinner at Bubba Gumps (yes, Forrest Gump’s  place).

 

After returning to our hotel, we decided to go see a movie, as it was still fairly early.  There was an AMC theatre a few blocks down the street (on Van Ness).  We caught “Mission to Mars,” which was pretty good, although Dave said the ending was too “Sappy,” and made fun of it for days.

 

When we returned to the hotel, we grabbed a beer in the bar, and then back to our room.  Tomorrow is Alcatraz!

 

 

Tuesday, March 28, 2000

 

Woke up early (6:00am) and grabbed a quick bite at our FREE continental breakfast at the hotel. 

 

We had decided to take the cable car down to the Wharf, so we walked over to Union Square (about 10 blocks) to catch the Cable Car.  They were doing some construction on the Cable Car turntable in Union Square, so we had to take a shuttle bus to the Cable Car Barn.  Once there, we were able to catch the Cable Car the rest of the way.  We took the Powell-Hyde Line.  We were packed to the gills.  However, the brakeman was also the ticket taker.  As he was collecting tickets, he realizes that he needs to get back to the brake as we were heading down hill.  He yelled out “Brakeman coming through, I need to get to the brake!”  It was like the parting of the Red Sea, as people squeezed to get out of the way!  We walked over to Fisherman’s Wharf, where Dave had a bowl of Clam Chowder at Boudins, a famous sourdough bread place.

 

Our tour to Alcatraz left at 11:15, as we left the pier, the sun finally started to come out.  We stopped in the gift/book shop, where we met the “the youngest guard on Alcatraz”.  He was there signing copies of his book about his life as a guard on Alcatraz.  He was a really nice guy.  He asked where we were from and we said “Chicago.”  Of course, he knew Al Capone!  Today was also his 73^rd birthday!

 

We took the audio tour of the cell house.  We were able to see where Al Capones’ cell was “thought” to be, as well as the cell of “The Birdman of Alcatraz.”  We were able to see the cells in Solitary, which was really creepy!  The cells were very small; barely room to turn around in!  The cells where “The Great Escape” took place were also visible.  You could see where the grill in the back of the cell wall had been dug out.  At the end of the cell block, the wall was cut away, so you could see the area inside the wall, where Morris and his friend had climbed up and out onto the roof.  Very cool!

 

We spent about 2 hours on “The Rock.”  We had spectacular views of the city and bay area! 

 

Once back at Pier 41, we decided to have lunch at Louis’ Italian Seafood.

 

Dave decided he wanted to go see China Town.  We headed for the Cable Car, that would drop us off pretty close, however, the line was way to long.  We decided we would walk for a bit and then, perhaps, catch a cab.  We basically stayed on Columbia until we got to Stockton to get to China Town.  We were able to walk about 2-3 blocks, before we decided that the streets were way too crowded!  It’s hard to believe the thousands of people that live in such a small area. 

 

We headed back towards Powell and kept walking.  We walked up Knob Hill and then back down!  What a workout!  We ended up walking all the way back to Union Square.  We stopped at an Irish Pub, called Foleys’s, so Dave could grab a Guiness.  Karen opted for a Diet Coke!  Met a guy and his wife, who were in town from Boise, Idaho.  He was in San Francisco because he needed surgery.  Something the hospital in Idaho wasn’t able to handle.  Apparently, he had a brain tumor, and he was going into the hospital the next day!  As we left, we wished them luck.  I hope things worked out well.  They were a nice couple.

 

Since we had walked this far, we decided what’s a few more blocks??  We continued walking down Powell to Market.  We took Market over to Golden Gate, where we found Uncle Diddy’s old church.  It’s a real pretty church.  It’s in need of repair from the earthquake.  The church is definitely needed in that area! 

 

From there we headed up Polk and back to our hotel!  What a walk. I’m sure it wasn’t more than 2 or 3 miles, but it was a great workout!

 

We had dinner at “Chevy’s,” a tex mex place.  We returned to our hotel about 7:00 pm, and were in for the night!

 

 

Wednesday, March 29, 2000

 

Another early morning.  Today we drove down to the Pier about 8:30 and had breakfast at the Expo restaurant by Fisherman’s Wharf.

 

We caught the first Bay Cruise of the day at 10:00.  We cruised out past Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge.  What an awesome sight!  We passed Angel Island, Sausalito (in the distance) and back to Pier 41; in all, about an hours boat ride.

 

The day was sunny and warm, so we decided to go to the San Francisco Zoo.  Karen had been there once as a child, although she doesn’t remember much of it.  We got to the zoo about 12:00, and did a quick tour.  It wasn’t real impressive, and a lot of the exhibits seemed to be closed down till mid-April.  The coolest was watching the tigers being fed.  We happened to walk into the Cat House, just as the keeper was calling in a couple of the tigers for dinner.  She throws down a big ole hunk of meat and the tigers start snacking!

 

We left the zoo about 2:00 and headed south on Hwy 1, which runs right along the coast.  We stopped at Rockaway Beach, in Pacifica for lunch at “Nick’s”, which had a real nice view of the ocean.  We decided to continue south on Hwy 1, headed towards Carmel (Dave decided he wanted to visit Clint Eastwood).  We arrived in Carmel about 5:45, just as all the shops were closing.  So we drove down to the beach area where the sun was just beginning to set.  It was quite amazing, the people moving towards the beach, like the angels that gather at the beach at sunrise and sunset in “City of Angels”.  We sat on top of the dune for a while and then Karen decided to go down and stick her toe in the Pacific Ocean.  We watched the ocean and sunset for a while longer, until deciding it was time to head backto San Francisco.  In all, we were there for about an hour.  The drive back up the coast was interesting in that it was pitch dark out (no street or city lights) with very slight fog and we arrived back at our hotel about 9:15.  Coming back into town, through an area called Twin Peaks, offered a fantastic few of the San Francisco at night!  Once in the hotel room, Dave realized he had not eaten at any San Francisco Oriental restaurants, and was in the mood for Thai food, so he headed out to find a place.  He was in luck, and found a restaurant a few blocks away that was about to close, but the lady took pity on him, and served him anyway.  Dave came back to the hotel a very happy camper, now that he had eaten his spicy hot squid and octopus!

 

 

Thursday, March 30, 2000

 

When we finally got up, we check out of our hotel, and headed for the airport.  Since we had to return the car filled with gas, we got off the highway, and of course got lost trying to get back on!  We finally made it to the airport, checked in, only to find that our flight had been changed (by a few minutes).

 

Our flight back took us through Salt Lake City, where we had another layover.  Our flight was delayed about 45 minutes.  We finally arrived back in Chicago about 8:45 pm.  Karen’s mom and dad were waiting, with Sean, to drive them home.