Miller on Draft: March 2016

Pat and I got to go to San Francisco for five days and nights this Spring Break. It was such fun...being together without work, eating, being tourists, walking, eating, drinking, meeting up with friends and family.... oh and then some more eating and drinking.

I had been to the city once before for a night before a hiking trip in Yosemite. Pat's mom and dad met in San Francisco. JoAnn, her sister, Marilee and brother, Jack grew up mostly in Marin County right outside San Francisco, so Pat had been there a few different times throughout childhood and early adulthood. But it was great fun to explore together.

First we stopped to get a scone in the airport....

Then we flew into sunrise

Took the BART from Oakland Airport into Powell Station to drop off our bags at the timeshare where we stayed- on the corner of Stockton and Bush.

From there we walked through Chinatown and a bit of North Beach to get to Fisherman's Wharf.

Those are sea lions.

Then we stopped by the Ferry Building where we snacked our way through the food stalls

After that we Ubered back to the room for rest

Then...planners that we are, we got in touch with Richard and Sue, friends from Asheville, and they happened to be free for dinner! So we met them for a view and Thai food. It was great to see them, swap stories of adulthood (jobs, life choices, etc) and lots of laughs.

And just for fun....here's a throwback to that first trip to SF I made....I'd say that we missed having Mista there this trip...but she was in Italy, so 2 out of 3 will have to do!

Sunday morning we got up, ate a quick bit at Roxanne's Cafe, and got on the Painted Ladies VW bus tour. Our guide was Josh and the other folks on the bus were the Burns family...mom, dad, two teenage kids from Ohio. So it was a whole bus of Burns-s.

City Hall

Mission District

Twin Peaks

I didn't take a picture, but they have public bathrooms that clean themselves- somebody in Public Administration knows what they are doing!

Haight Ashbury (the picture above is where Jimmy Hendrix lived)

Pacific Heights, where an apartment costs $8500/month

Down through Presidio to a view of the Golden Gate. Presidio used to be military area and where Pat's parents had their reception after their wedding.

The view down Lombard Street

After the tour, we met up with Jack, Pat's uncle.

These are a couple pictures of the view from his apartment. It's 120 steps up, he's lived there for 40-some years and has beautiful rent control and views!

Then we went with Jack to the Cliff House for lunch.

Yes, that's the view from the table.

Uncle Jack with Pat and I.

And Jack and Pat a few years ago!

After we dropped Jack back at his apartment, we tried a couple of Happy Hours on the way home....you know, just to get the flavor of the city. Last Drop Tavern was nice, Chelsea's Tavern was sketchy and Top of the Tunnel was fine.

Monday morning we got up and took ourselves to the Mission District and La Taqueria. Pat had the tacos and I had the burrito. He liked his quite a bit, and while I liked mine, it didn't blow my head off...which was what I expected after all the good recommendations we had gotten for it.

Then we bought umbrellas and walked along Valencia till we got to Tartine...which did live up to its reviews and lines around the corner. Unfortunately I didn't snap a picture of the baguette we waited to get fresh out of the oven at 3:30, but I did get the Chocolate Rye Bar below.

We barted back to our room for a late afternoon snooze and then we ate dinner at the Stinking Rose....where every dish is focused on garlic.

That's roasted garlic and anchovies to dip bread into.

That's garlic on the ceiling

That's Pat deciding which garlic dish to eat next...we went with garlic clams

And yes......that's garlic ice cream. I don't know if we were just so over saturated with garlic that we couldn't taste the garlic anymore, but the ice cream was good...

Those are books, well book lights. We didn't have time to get into City Lights Books, but we were nearby!

And this is the Irish Bank, our favorite watering hole of the trip and only a block from where we stayed.

Tuesday we headed over to the Golden Gate Park. We thought we'd walk part way and then bus the rest, but we just ended up walking the whole way.....and the whole way through the park to the ocean (I wore the wrong shoes and have the blisters to prove it, but it was really pretty).

This was the Flower Conservancy....although it mostly had jungle plants inside....

Oh and there is a model train....

And a dangly tropical thing that was big

Finally we made it by the windmills to the ocean and the Beach Chalet

We were pooped, so we Ubered back to the room, got pizza and relaxed with an evening in.

Wednesday, we walked down to the Pier to take off for Alcatraz.

The view from the boat as we left the pier

I didn't realize that Alcatraz was a fort before it was a prison and after the prison was closed the island was occupied by Native Americans in the late 60s in an attempt to have it returned to them as property and as a part of a larger protest of the time against the treatment of Native Americans.

Those are U-2 military spy planes...but apparently I'm amazing, because I can see them.

There were a lot more flowers on Alcatraz than in the Flower Conservancy at Golden Gate Park

It's hard to take a selfie with a city.

The audio guided tour gave a really clear picture of life in the prison.

Imagine being in that cell when the door closed. The prisoners on the audio tour talked about the visions they would have.

Dominoes in prison.

The children of the guards talked about having an idyllic small town childhood on the island. They ferried into school each day and rarely saw the prisoners.