San Francisco

Tricia and I were able to visit San Francisco this past week; one for Richard's ACOEP conference and two, for a nice vacation.  The first day was relaxing and went spent the later half of the afternoon becoming familiar with the downtown atmosphere.  We walked around for the majority of the vacation, visiting one San Fran block after the other; places like The Fisherman's Wharf, Union Square, The Ferry Building, Ghirardelli Square, the beach, and even a ferry over to Sausalito.  This here is a picture of Trish and I on our way to Sausalito, as we cruise by Alcatraz.

We we also learned very quickly about San Francisco, and as all of our friends told us about, there are hills everywhere.  We were riding one of the trollies around town, and just as we pasted one main street to another, the hill would almost rise out from nowhere, and then disappear soon after down the next street.

This is a picture of Trish on our first day in San Francisco.  The buuilding behind here is where the BART train dropped us off from the airport.  Our first day, and we were already introduced to tall buildings, downtown music made from coffee cans and empty tin cans, and homeless folk asking for anything that wasn't tied to our clothes.

A shot of us and Alcatraz, from Fisherman's Wharf.

In the middle of some of Richard's meetings, we were able to walk around Fisherman's Wharf and the north shore of San Francisco.  Here we are having lunch at Johnny Rockets, a great diner to grab an old-fashioned hamburger and of course......

....a milk shake!

We were even able to catch a show during lunch.  This one "homeless" guy -we really don't know if these people were homeless, but we just sort of speculated.  How do you really know if they're homeless anyway?   They could just be working the system for some extra dough.  As we ate, we talked about the bootie they could be raking in. So, think about how many people walk by them in one hour; and if only 5% of those 200 people give them a buck, thats $10/hr.  So now they're making 150% more than minimum wage-  Anyhow, a "homeless" was working to entertain himself at one in the afternoon by hiding in a garbage can and scaring unsuspecting sightseers.  We got some of it on video, and its actually quite funny because a few more "homeless" people joined in close by the garbage can.  They aided in the fun by playing music and dancing next to the garbage can so those walking by, didn't notice the bobbing dark figure under the hood of the city trash receptacle.

After the lunch and comedy show, we headed on over down the beach to Ghirardelli and the park.  One of Tricia's favorite pictures here; us sitting on the beach in front of Ghirardelli square over-looking the Golden Gate Bridge and feeding the Sea Gulls.

On our last day in town, we decided to take more of a walking and meandering stroll around downtown, so we visited the Ferry Building and marketplace.  This is where we grabbed our ferry ride to Sausalito and enjoyed the upclose look at Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.

My attempt at being photogenically creative....suck it Scott!!

And just as a good way to say Good-Bye, San Francisco rewarded Tricia and I with some free cupcakes and coffee.  We were enjoying a stroll through this office-park-square area and we noticed a huge yellow tent surrounded by a lot of people.  Upon further investigation, we were offered a chance to try -for free- some Keurig Coffee (a little plug for them to say thanks for the free coffee in San Francisco)!  After we grabbed our one-cup brewed coffee, a passerby told us of FREE cupcakes just across the way.  And that is what brings us to this picture.  Tricia, with her free Keurig coffee, is about to enjoy her FREE vanilla cupcake from Kara's Cupcakes (thanks Kara)!

Overall we had a great trip and Paige did well with Mammy and Pappy Whiddon in Texas. We missed her but the vacation was so much better without lugging a baby around. San Francisco was a nice city and we look forward to visiting the wine country on a future trip.