We started our day with delicious omelettes that Susan made for us. This woman can COOK! Every morning she makes something wonderful for breakfast. I don’t know how she finds the time, but she does, and it was spectacular.
After breakfast, we all piled in the minivan and headed out. Now, because I don’t know the area, some of these pictures aren’t going to make much sense because I don’t know where we were when I took them, but I’ll do my best to give an accurate description.
We began by heading down toward the water on the Oakland side. There were lovely sights to see. We could see the San Francisco skyline quite well on this gorgeous day.
We wanted to go to Alcatraz, but we discovered that, because it’s Fourth of July weekend, the tours were all booked up until next Monday. Boooooo. Instead, I just took some blurry, crooked pictures.
That was plenty fine with me.
Susan took this picture with the SF skyline and the Bay Bridge behind us.
Then, we headed to Ghirardelli Square. We refrained from getting any chocolate because the place was packed. The Ghirardelli factory has been in this location since 1852 or so. Mom would love it!
From there, we went to Fisherman’s Wharf and took a gander at the sights there
which included this little row of boats straight out of Sweethaven.
There was some weird stuff down there by the wharf. In one bread shop, the bakers create alligators and turtles out of bread dough. Wacky.
Of course, Ra was present.
What kind of a day would it be without Ra?
We also saw the place where the sea lions have taken over the floating docks.
Dave, Susan, Sebastian, and I took a turn on the double-decker merry-go-round. That was a lot of fun!
I found my first left-handed store.
You laugh, but you have no idea the trials we lefties experience in our day-to-day lives. Why must your ladles pour on the right-handed side? Why must you only print measurements on one side of the measuring cup? People! Get with the program. Equal opportunity pouring!
For lunch, we completed our burger chain trifecta by hitting the In-n-Out Burger.
Since we didn’t know about the "secret menu," we weren’t prepared to order our burgers "animal style" or "protein style," so we just got plain old cheeseburgers.
Regardless, it was a pretty good burger. Fries, not so great in my opinion, and the shake was too thick to drink through the straw (no spoon provided) and it wasn’t cold enough. So far, the Fatburger and Jack-in-the-Box are way ahead.
We next went to see Lombard Street, the famously curvy block in San Francisco.
Susan tells us that the hilly roads were all this curvy once in order to protect the animals from having to go straight up or down the hills, but all of the roads, save this one, have been repaved to go straight.
You know you’re going to be in trouble when the sidewalk is just a staircase.
I wonder how the people who live here feel about all of these tourists in front of their homes. Receiving deliveries must be a pain, too.
We found that there is still at least one Swensen’s still open in the US.
And we saw some pretty fabulous architecture in the city.
I was a little alarmed to see, not just one nerd on a Segway scooter, but a whole TOUR of them. They all went rolling by while we were at a stoplight. Most were wearing their little nerd helmets and totally nerding up the streets.
We went to see the Golden Gate Bridge next. We did not, however, walk across it (see Thursday’s upcoming entry for those hijinx), but I got some pretty great pictures of the bridge and environs.
On the way home, we drove by San Quentin. I was all excited for its sheer "Johnny Cashet" (I made that up myself; see what I did there?). I took some photos but they don’t make any sense because I have no idea what I was looking at.
After that we headed back to Susan and Roy’s house for a little rest before our next adventure.
For dinner, we met my friend Greg and his gal Anita at a great Indian restaurant in Oakland called Breads of India.
It was delicious! Dave, Greg, and I all enjoy spicy food, but Anita was trying to avoid it, so she ordered my favorite dish, Chicken Tikka Massala, and asked the waitress if it was spicy. The waitress, of course, said “no,” but within a few minutes of being served, poor Anita was dying from the spiciness of the dish. I think she might have been the only one of us to get a dish that was spicy at all! She was quite a trooper about it, though, and took it with a really great sense of humor.
After dinner, we headed to a place called iFly, which is an indoor skydiving facility.
This just means there is a giant vertical wind tunnel, and people hop into skydiving suits and try to figure out how to free fall and do tricks in a controlled environment. No, Dave and I did NOT do it because we hadn’t made a reservation (and it’s a little too rich for our blood anyway. Do you hear me, Bev Perdue?). We watched a group of people who clearly came as a team building activity for work. Only one of them seemed to have done it before, and all the rest were novices. It looked like so much fun. By the time it was Greg and Anita’s turn, we were completely enthralled.
They were learning to do certain tricks like back flips and walking up and down the walls of the tunnel. It was really fun to watch. I made a few videos to give an idea of what was going on in there, but I’m not sure how much sense it will make.
This is Anita working with the trainer on back flips.
This is Greg with the trainer working on walking on the walls.
After about a half hour, it was all over. By this time, it was about 10:45, and there was still another group getting ready to take their turn. They must run that thing all night, I swear.
We headed home afterwards to finally call it a day. It was nice to see Greg after a few years, and it was great to meet Anita. She was a lot of fun! The biggest mistake I made was not getting a proper photo of the two of them. Boooo, Kerry.
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