Day 4

A sad day ... we had to leave Napa Valley

But on to San Francisco!

We headed out bright and early in the Corolla with our trusty GPS.  Stuart planned the SF part of our trip while I planned the Napa part.  Being the wonderful husband that he is, he knows I am a tree hugger and therefore planned the first part of San Fran as a stop in Muir Woods.

Beautiful views from the road up to the woods

In the words of Stuart himself, "Muir woods was started by Mr Muir, a real hippie philosopher who liked to sit out in the forest and write stuff."

Regardless of your hippie or non-hippie views, Muir woods was a pretty cool place!  You really cannot stand next to a 1000 year old Redwood and not be in awe of God and nature.

Trunk rings from a fallen Redwood

I will answer to "tree hugger" thank you very much

Stuart wasn't quite as excited about having his picture made inside a tree ...

Check out the swirly bark!

After hiking around the woods we were both famished.  Stuart GPS'ed us to In and Out Burger, a fast food love of his second only to Chipotle. We both had our burgers "animal style" meaning with sauteed onions and some sort of thousand-island type sauce.  It was pretty delicious!  We also met a cute family from Sonoma next to us who inquired about our strange Southern accents.  They kept interrupting us while trying to take this picture ... hence the awkward face

After In and Out it was off to the city by the bay!  Before we found our way through city traffic, we pulled off at a look-off area for great pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge!  I kind of felt like I was on Full House for a moment.  We tried to remember the theme song without much luck.

Agghhh!  Be careful up there!

Driving on the bridge followed by a SIX DOLLAR toll.  Yuck.

After we finished sight-seeing, we headed through downtown San Fran to drop off our car rental at the airport and catch the shuttle to our hotel, the Omni. I forgot to take pictures of what the hotel looked like, so here's one I stole from online.

After unpacking and checking out the room's fanciness, we decided to go for a walk!  Now, San Francisco is pretty daggum hilly.  I really had no idea.  I don't understand how anyone in that city can be overweight ... unless they ride the cable car everywhere.  Anyway, we went for a walk in the Financial District and Little Italy neighborhoods.  Obviously people watching was a big part of this and we again discovered that Californians are a bit ... different ... than Southerners.

On our walk we happened upon the City Lights bookstore.  I was in search of a souvenir cookbook and thought they might have one inside.  They had nothing even remotely related to cookbooks.  Turns out they are a bookstore specializing in "World literature, the arts, and progressive politics".  Oops!  Stuart got mad just looking at the choices on the shelves.  The only remotely interesting things I found were a book on NPR, and a book written by a physician about strange things that people have eaten.  Most of the rest of the titles were unmentionable, or things that we didn't understand.

Oh well!  Out on the streets again we went.  We were getting pretty hungry, and had heard about this place in Little Italy called The Stinking Rose.  Their motto is "we flavor our garlic with food", and every dish has garlic - even the desserts!  We sat down for a stinky dinner and were immediately brought an iron skillet of roasted garlic cloves for dipping bread in.  

Stinky!

Worlds longest garlic rope

I wound up ordering lasagna and Stu had fillet of sole with tomatoes and garlic.  While the dishes sounded delicious, we had unfortunately fallen prey to the tourist trap restaurant and the meal was nowhere near delicious.  Live and learn.

Afterward we wanted to redeem a bad dinner with a delicious dessert! Stuart had discovered this bar called Top of the Mark that reportedly had the best views in all of San Francisco.  Unfortunately, it was at the top of a 6 block stretch of 45 degree hill.  We trudged and trudged, and finally sweaty and out of breath, we made it to the top!  I felt a bit awkward walking in to this fancy hotel/bar with waiters in tuxes while we were panting and sweating, but we went for it!  And we were rewarded with wonderful views, and a delicious chocolate banana creme pie!

A smaller example of the hills we trekked

  Day 5 is soon to come ...