Day 18: San Francisco Bay area

Tuesday was our first full day in the Bay area. We began by packing up Susan’s twin 2 ½-year-old boys Fletcher and Sebastian, and we went to the Oakland Mormon temple. It was quite a grand building reminiscent of the Magic Kingdom at Disney World. The lawns were impeccably manicured with gorgeous flowers, and the building was gorgeous with its five spires in the sky.





Visitors are permitted to go in to the building but only a certain part. When Dave, Susan, and I walked in with the two boys, there were several people there to greet us with shining faces. They asked us if we’d been there before, where we were from, etc., and if we wanted to see the program they had for us. To the boys, this meant seeing a movie, so we had to go for it, plus it was a bizarre proposition. The program was a multi-stationed film/diorama thing about committing ourselves to our families so we can all be together in the afterlife. Yep, that’s all I’m saying about that. See me after school for more details.

For the record, the temple had an amazing view of Oakland. It was quite lovely.


From there, Susan took us to a fortune cookie that was one of the few in the US.


Note my use of the word “was.” When we arrived, we found an eviction notice on the door stating that the premises and their contents were now in the custody of the building’s owner. Oh, well. No fortune cookies for us.


We then headed to Jack London Square in Oakland.


I guess our boy, the author of such gems as The Call of the Wild and White Fang, used to hang out round these parts. Oakland was clearly quite proud of this fact because there were statues and plaques and more statues and plaques.





There was even half of a cabin he had lived in during fishing season in Alaska one year. ????



We then went to a park in Oakland to look at giant redwood trees and let the boys run around a bit. The trees were pretty amazing in size. Dave got some pretty amazing shots here.


Can you see me with Sebastian? This will give you some perspective.


They're not the biggest of the redwoods, but they sure are big.



For dinner, we got AWESOME take-out from Uncle Willie’s BBQ & Fish.


We ordered a few orders of bbq brisket, mac and cheese, baked beans, and collards. It was fantastic! We also ordered a few of their peach cobblers which were like large tarts or very small pies. They were delicious with vanilla ice cream.

We decided to take it easy in the evening and play this great board game called Compatibility. Basically, it’s an Australian game in which you try to match your partner’s answers to certain questions. Quite fun. Then to bed to get some rest before some serious SF sightseeing.