This trip was mostly for visiting Sherry's son attending college in San Francisco. And, we figured that as long as we were there, we might as well be tourists. I had been to San Francisco two years earlier while on my way to a seminar on a ranch north of San Francisco.
For transparency, I should say that since this trip was a bit different than usual (Sherry did most of the planning and I did not keep travel records like I usually do) that I totally forgot to make this website "blog" after I returned home. In fact, it was 2014 before I even realized that I had forgotten to do that. Then it sat on my TO-DO list for two more years until I finally took off a couple of days to finally get this done. So, nine years after the actual trip, I am writing this. Some memories and details are certainly lost in the past decade. But here goes.......
SAN FRANCISCO: As mentioned above, I was briefly in San Francisco two years earlier but had zero time to see the city. This
trip there was time. I was amazed at how many people were walking on the downtown sidewalks on a weekend. Shoulder to shoulder as
one photo shows. In Kansas City, unless there is some special event going on downtown, it is a ghost town. Last one out of downtown
on Friday is supposed to "turn off the lights". Of course, famous sites such as the Golden Gate Bridge, The Presidio (future headquarters
for Starfleet, for the Star Trek fans), Alcatraz, the steeply-inclined streets (I saw some but did not get a photo), the skyline, and,
of course, the Bay and the Pacific. All impressive. And Sherry picked out some special places such as a factory that makes chocolate
(gee, imagine that, Sherry and chocolate!) and the Museum for Charles Schulz of "Peanuts" fame in Santa Rosa, north of San Fran.
OBSERVATIONS: Some observations made while traveling in this area (this is strictly going on nine year old memory since no notes):
The Bests:
The Totals:
San Francisco is known for overcast gray days -- like Seattle. And although there was some sunshine while we were there, there was
plenty of the hanging gray days too.
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK: We were too close to this well known and well visited park to not go there. We took our rental car there and a different
route back. On my birthday, a beautiful sunny day, we hiked around the park. Our favorite was going up a stream that was strewn with
rocks and boulders of nearly all sizes. We had to climb at some points and watch where we stepped everywhere since it was easy to slip.
Absolutely fun way to spend a birthday.
CALIFORNIA: The only part of the state we saw was the two different routes between San Francisco and Yosemite National Park.
The route back took us on some fairly desolate roads, including some mountainous switchback roads, that took us right past the Lick
Observatory.
MISSED VISITING:
-- Photographing the Golden Gate Bridge from either of the points where it meets land: Lime Point and Fort Point
-- Palo Alto and Stanford University and the home of the wife of President Hoover
-- University of California - Berkley, one of the most famous and prestigious research institutions in the world
The Worsts: