San Francisco Trip!
As you may know, last week I went to San Francisco as Sarah's guest to be her model for her State Board Exam for her Esthetician License, and to have some great fun! You've been waiting for these photos! :)
It was fun to see the kitties again! Zap liked to hang by my computer:
We played some games that night:
In he morning, we set out for the Wharf area. All transportation via Sarah's cute little car, the Mini Cooper:
This is Alioto's where we had lunch on Monday. This place has been around since the 1920's, and has a fantastic view with excellent food. I think we had a crab and avacado salad with fried wonton chips. Yum.
One of many views from the restarant:
We spotted a fishing boat and seal or sea lion (?) through the window during our lunch
Shortly after lunch, we were packed and headed to Fairfield, California for our overnight adventure with the California State Board! We stayed at the Extended Stay Hotel:
It was over 100 degrees when we got into town! I think it was about an hour's drive from SF, over the Bay Bridge, and somewhere to the northeast. Cooling off in the air conditioned room:
We drank some really excellent wine out of those silly plastic glasses on the night stand. :) We did a little reviewing for he exam, and then headed out for dinner at the Blue Frog Grog. I kid you not. We had great pizza and a beer sampler that was freakin' awesome:
So then the big day arrived. Here is where the exam took place:
There was a lot of waiting around involved before the exam took place. I managed to find a trail to walk behind the building, and befriended a grey squirrel and saw some robins. The exam itself was quiet and intense. Oops. I forgot to say that the written part of the exam was in the early morning. I stayed back at the hotel and ate leftover pizza, while Sarah slaved over paper. Now the hands on part is difficult for me to report on. I basically laid back in the chair while Sarah performed her magic. I'm happy to say I didn't even react to the eyebrow waxing the way I did once before in my life. I could tell she was doing a great job and that the proctor thought so as well. Finally.....drum roll......
Doesn't she look happy? We lost no time getting the hell out of Dodge. Back at the ranch, Phil had a couple bottles of bubbly chillin' in the fridge, and we had a yummy snack night. This is by far my favorite dinnertime menu!
I think this was the night we taught ourselves how to play 3-handed Euchre, using the basics from the internet, then changing it up a little to make it make sense to us. We ended up playing a lot of that, and it was fun. The kitties!
Wednesday morning. We did a lot of driving around the city, sightseeing. I had never really spent any time in Nob Hill, so we headed there. Quite the slopes involved in some of the driving. I'm not sure exactly where this was, but woooo!
At some point in time, we passed Sarah's school, where we would later have facials!
Shopping in Chinatown.
The walking around in Nob Hill can be grueling if you are not used to the hilly streets of San Francisco. We had lunch at the Top of the Mark at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. Some beautiful views follow. Here is the fog on the Golden Gate Bridge.
Another view:
Here is our yummy food. Sarah had a seared tuna salad and I had a chicken avocado salad.
We visited several districts of SF, including the Mission, Castro, the Haight and Tenderloin. I needed to see the city. We had some pizza for supper and spent time just relaxing that night. The next morning, Thursday, we took off to Golden Gate Park. We walked around the park a little and found ourselves in the Japanese Gardens and then the DeYoung Museum, pictured here:
Golden Gate Park:
The Japanese Gardens were beautiful. I can't post all the photos I took, but the place is awesome.
Me. I think this is the only picture of me the whole trip. Remind me next time to give the camera up a little. :)
Sarah on the circular bridge. This was crazy odd to get across..
Next it was on to the art museum. This was pretty cool and we visited several areas. There was a special exhibit going on with King Tut's treasures, but there was an extra cost and a waiting list for that. Here is the view from the tower looking down to the park:
After that, there was a little shopping on Union Street (Igot some awesome chocolates!) and then we took off to the Pacific Ocean Beach!
Windmill! Don't see these too often!
Aww, kitties again.
On Friday, after messing up my eye in the morn, we started doing a little shopping downtown in the morning, then had a nice lunch at Lark Creek in the Mall. The tomato gaspacho was worth trying to recreate, and I will attempt that soon. Then Sarah took us for facials at her alma mater, and Jie C did a wonderful job on me! Heading toward the Ferry Building area, my sandal broke (previously hot glued by Andy), we we walked (or in my case flopped) over to Old Navy to get me some new $3.50 white flip flops. Hey, they did the trick. Here we are having a margarita near the bay.
There was some kind of war protest going on there.
Saturday. We were headed to wineries around Livermore. First stop: Putty golf time at Boomer's. This was really fun!
This place was pretty awesome. Castles, bumper boats, you name it!
On to the wineries.. GRAPES!
At La Rochelle
At the above place we had nice cheese and cracker, etc. plates. I should have waited on the picture! This place was great!
Next we are at Crooked Vine.
I think here we were at Murietta's Well, but by now I'm just not sure.
We visited one more winery after that, Wente, I think, but no pictures. I took a lot of pictures on the way back over the Bay Bridge, but they are mediocre at best and not worth posting. That night we had a great deep dish Chicago Style Pizza from Patxi's. I ran out of photos at this point. In the morning I was off to the airport. Wow, thanks guys.....that was a blast! Hope you enjoy the photo-journal.
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