When we left Tuesday morning we took I-5 and shot down there like a bullet. It takes about 12 hours and we only made 3 stops (we were on a mission, plenty of time to dilly dally later!).
Going into Oregon
My turn to drive and this is what the rest of the clan decided to do
It was weird, most of I-5 in Oregon only has 2 lanes so they allow the semis to drive on the "shoulder" going up the mountains (which it's pretty mountainous in Oregon on I-5, I was sort of surprised)
Hello, California!
We pretty much got to the hotel, unloaded and walked to Wendy's for dinner. The next day we tackled San Fran. Before I go any further, let me explain "we". "We" is me, Aaron (14 months now!!), Christie (one of Chuck's classmate's wives), Victoria (3), and Alexander (8 months).
This is Aaron communicating with Alexander on the way to the city which was about 1.5 hours each way (give or take).
We are crossing the Bay Bridge (not to be confused with the Golden Gate bridge which is a redish/orange color) into the city.
There's two parts to the bridge and a small tunnel in between, Victoria loved this part!
Even though it's not the most popular bridge of the area, it's still pretty amazing
This is one of the first big hills we saw on our way to Coit Tower. Some of them are so steep they feel they should put stairs on them.
This is a view from the Coit Tower grounds.
I got Miss Victoria to take a pic for me. She's so cute!!
Another view from the Tower, the Golden Gate bridge.
Alcatraz
There are lots of different murals inside the tower, done by 26 different artists. These are just a couple.
This was a bathroom on the Tower grounds. I thought it was pretty cool, you push the button on the right of the door there and the door slides open for you to step in and then it slides closed. I didn't check it out as much as I wanted, I know around the world there are ones that do this and they wash themselves when they close. I don't know if this one did that or not.
Another view toward the city, you can see Lombard Street in the very background.
Christie, Alexander and shy Victoria
This is actually Coit Tower. You can go up in it for a small fee but we decided that we had so much that we wanted to do and more important lines to stand it, we decided to move on. From what I understand, a Miss Coit gave a third of her estate to the city of San Fran to beautify it.
From Coit Tower we went to Fisherman's Wharf. This is the sign near the area.
We were fortunate to see a bit of the Blue Angels (I think). We had no idea they were going to be there, but they only flew by a few times.
We went to a cafe called Boudin and they had these sourdough animals. It was really cool!
This is the cafe
We bought a city pass. This allowed us to use the public transportation in the city for free, unlimited for 7 days, and got us into museums and a bay cruise. We took the cruise first (after eating, of course). This was the city from the water. You can see Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill to the left and the Transamerica pyramidin the middle.
The people on our boat were fascinated with a sea gull that was flying along with our boat.
There were a ton of these kite surfers. I've seen them on TV but never in person. Pretty cool but they were crazy, crossed right in front of the boat.
I had to get in on the sea gull action
And the Golden Gate bridge...isn't it pretty? This is toward the north, away from San Fran.
Toward the south, the city.
Let me tell you, I have a ton of these so I won't share all of them. They are pretty, though! I'm glad I took a ton because when we crossed the bridge on foot it was foggy as all get out!!! You'll see those later...
Christie on crowd control duty (sorry, Christie!!). I'm sharing these photos with her, plus a ton more!! She really put up with me on this trip, taking as many pictures as I do, wait until you hear about the last day!
I just thought this was a cool sailboat
Alcatraz! We didn't get tickets to this because I looked too late. With camp and then the inferno, this trip totally snuck up on me. They say you should make reservations two weeks in advance and I dropped the ball. I'm bummed but at least we got to see it a bit more than from land. I can't tell you anything about it so don't ask. But when I came to San Fran right after 9/11 for a conference I got my dad a book, so ask him (he probably hasn't even read it...).
And this was our boat.
I think that's all I'm going to include for now. I figure if I do this much a day I should be done by the end of the week. But keep checking back because I've got some really cool pics!!!
3 comments:
Thank you for the pictures. They were great. We did read the book about Alcatraz.
Did you ride the ferry over to Sausalito? It was one of my favorite spots in San Francisco.
We didn't take a ferry there. I would have loved to, but there just wasn't time. It sounded like a lot of fun though!!
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