February 5-15, 2017
Greg worked in San Francisco for about
a month a number of years back when we first married and I had the
chance to fly out and explore the city with him. I loved it and so I
looked forward to coming back. But much like the other weeks in
California, we had A LOT of rain. It rained Monday through Thursday
pretty steadily. After years of drought, now California is in
trouble from flooding, mud slides and rock slides.
The good news for us is that the rain
finally cleared up for Saturday, which was the beginning of Greg's
two week vacation.
But first, I have to share that Jordan
turned 8 years old! It's hard to believe especially since she was
just 4 when we set out that first year in the RV. She loves American
Girl (and Calico Critters and more recently Barbie) so it worked out
great that we were close enough to an American Girl store to go
browsing and have lunch.
 |
| (breakfast donut, of course!) |
She also decorated her own cake this
year.
Our first outing in this area, was to
the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center. It was a pretty small
little center but one of the employees talked to me about the
wetlands and the reason to be concerned about their disappearance as
well as an experimental horizontal levee coastal storm-surge barrier
that is being tested nearby. Very interesting idea.
We looked at some of the fish they had
on display and viewed some organisms under a microscope.
Then we strolled along a path through
the wetlands and observed the many water fowl.
While in the area, we stayed at Alameda
County Fairgrounds which was essentially just a parking lot but it
was in Pleasanton which is very nice and quite close to the BART
station. However, I cannot imagine living out this far and riding
the BART 45 minutes one way into the city everyday. It's fun the
first few times, but would get old really fast.
Our first day in San Francisco was
spent just sightseeing. We rode the trolley,
had Dim Sum in Chinatown,
walked down Lombard Street,
and saw the house from the Mrs. Doubtfire movie.
The second day, we had lunch at Pier 39
and watched the Sea Lions
then we took a boat to Alcatraz.
The third day was the most fun. We
took our bikes into town and road from the Embarcadero station along
the waterline to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Then we rode across the bridge and down into Sausalito. In all, it was about 13 miles and an uphill challenge in a few spots.
We took the ferry back to Embarcadero and then road the BART home. The biggest challenge was trying to get all four of our bikes on the train when they are full of evening commuters!
Then we rode across the bridge and down into Sausalito. In all, it was about 13 miles and an uphill challenge in a few spots.
We took the ferry back to Embarcadero and then road the BART home. The biggest challenge was trying to get all four of our bikes on the train when they are full of evening commuters!
Our last day was spent at Muir Woods
National Monument. We saw beautifully tall redwoods (the tallest
trees in the WORLD), listened to a short talk, and walked the trail.
If all goes well, we will get to experience real snow and skiing in South Lake Tahoe next!
