San Francisco Day 1--July 10, 2010

Linda and I are traveling buddies, having gone to Paris, France last year.  This year, we chose San Francisco.  I had never been to California and it was one more state I could cross off my bucket list. We had a blast.  Thanks Linda for putting up with me and all of my craziness.

 I am going to break this down to a day by day blog, as we crammed so much into one day, it would be impossible to tell you all about it in one post.  I had to have a back procedure on July7th and was a bit worried that I might have problems while on our trip.  One time, I had to take a pain pill, but I think I did all right otherwise.  You would have to check with Linda to be sure though.

We left OKC at 10:45 a.m. on Saturday July 10th and arrived in Dallas at 11:45 a.m., leaving Dallas at 12:25 p.m. and arriving in San Francisco at 2:05 p.m.  Upon arriving, we took a taxi to the hotel, checked in and promptly left to explore.

We ate lunch at John's Grill.  for you book fans, this is the home of the Maltese Falcon.  The place is steeped in history and tradition.  It was just around the corner from our hotel and worth the trip to experience this.

Next, we decided to try our luck at the Trolley Cars. Linda is a whiz at  reading maps and I am soooo very directionally challenged, that I just blindly follow her.  She got a map, decided which lines to ride and where to get off.  The ending/beginning of the line we rode most of the time, was just around the corner from our hotel.  This was the first glimpse we got.  They really truly do rotate the cars by physical force.  (Be sure to notice the way the guys are dressed).  While waiting in line, there are street performers to keep you entertained.  Really good street performers.

We traveled down to the wharf. The closer we got to the ocean, the colder it got.  OK, I know what everyone said, and we did take jackets, but it was COLD.  Our very first purchases were....gloves. See how those guys are dressed in the cable car pic?  We should have caught on, but being dummies being so caught up in the experience of San Francisco, it never occurred to us that our hands might be cold.  (Before the end of the trip, we both had bought San Francisco sweat shirts and were dressed in so many layers, it wasn't even funny).

Anyway, at the wharf, there is a bread shop that bakes bread in all sorts of shapes.  Here are pictures of the Bear Bread, the Turtle Bread and the Alligator Bread.  No, I didn't bring any home.  I couldn't figure out how to pack it or I would have.

We found a restaurant on the wharf and decided to eat dinner before heading back to the hotel.  We got a wonderful booth facing the ocean and Alcatraz (see below).  Our booth even came with binoculars so we could zoom in on everything.  It was so foggy and gray, perfect for our first view of "The Rock".  This restaurant had forks, knives and spoons shaped like  fish tails.  The food was good, but the atmosphere was awesome. 

We were starting to get weary and decided to walk back to the Cable Car pick up area and go back to the room to crash.  We arrived back at our room and after a couple of hours of deciding what to do the next day, we crashed.

There were so many sights and sounds to take in.  The hotel did not really have air conditioning, but had windows that opened about 1 inch or so.  We slept listening to the sounds of the city.  Not long after we went to bed, I was hunting for the blanket as it got cool in our room.