Tour Diary - Day Twenty One
Feb. 8th, 2017 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanApproaching the end of days... Only a few to go before going home
Monday 24th of October - San Francisco
A sleep-in, then a non-eventful breakfast down near the lake shore on Grand Ave, before making attempt #2 at visiting Muir Woods. Surely the place would be less crowded on a Monday right? Wrong... when we got there around lunchtime, after some TomTom adventures in back streets & a couple of driveways (!?!) the place was, if anything, more crowded than it had been on Friday. Once again, all the car parks were full, as were the surrounding streets. We drove around the area for about 20 minutes, eyes peeled for anyone even remotely looking like they were going anywhere near a parked car, but other than possibly deterring some car thieves (maybe), nobody looked like leaving. So, reluctantly, we decided to. Good thing it was an overcast, grey day, so we could feel better about not going. We had other, more exciting, things to do with the day, therefore - off to do a significant amount of laundry in the Richmond area, where we stayed last time we were in SF. But first, we stopped at Fort Point, on the southern side of the Golden Gate Bridge for some photos, both for us & for a few tourist couples who saw our DSLRs & assumed we must be "professionals", so would take a better photo than them. Hope they weren't too blurry...
To Richmond & the laundromat, where we were approached by an elderly Indian (as in Chennai, not Cheyenne) looking for spare change to do laundry with. She seemed to have enough money to have bought breakfast & magazines to read in the laundromat with her partner, though, so we kept our quarters.... Washing machine loaded, we then popped into a little Italian cafe a few doors down, where the older Italian guy behind the counter knew what an espresso machine was &, more importantly, how to use it... our macchiatos were like being at home. Laundry done, off into the city to hit the shops & pummel the bank balance for a few hours. This included a visit to Tiffany's - no breakfast on offer, but lots of shiny things. We were there to get a birthday present for Julia's sister... & whatever else caught our eye. What caught mine was a simple-looking leather bracelet with a silver clasp. It fitted my wrist perfectly, without any adjustment, then Julia saw the price... $375US which translated to over $500 of our hard-earned dollars for something that was made from a couple of strips of leather & some leftover sterling. What we were really paying for was the Paloma Picasso name - which wasn't even engraved in the silver, but was proudly displayed on the price card. A nice piece, certainly, but not for that much... After some trans-Pacific consultation with Julia's sister about a necklace & finding some nice earrings for Julia, we left Paloma's craftshop homework back under its glass case & headed to H&M, where I found a couple of shirts &... a nice leather bracelet with a metal magnetic clasp for $10US. And bought 2 of them
Back onto the rainy streets & finally, after 3 attempts in 4 years... dinner at the Cheesecake Factory on the top floor of Macy's. A 30 min wait for a table, but that was an improvement on the last times, so we tried out a few display sofas on the next floor down until our number was called. A trainee waitress caused a few hassles & delays in getting our meals ordered & brought to us, but the food was good & there was plenty of it, so once again, stuffed to the gills, we rolled out of there & back to where Travis was sheltering in a multi-level carpark. A post-prandial excursion was needed, so we headed to the Palace of Fine Arts for some night shots & strolling
Then, to get the heartrate up & metabolism cranking, we drove down Lombard St - the extremely curvy bit. Taking a beast the size of Travis 'round those curves was like arm-wrestling a blue whale - heavy, unwieldy & you're not sure what part to grab onto. Heartrate up & day winding down, it was time to tackle the freeway back to lodgings in Oakland. Even though we've been here 3 days, I still seem to find new ways to take the wrong exit somewhere. Tonight's wasn't too bad... only a few minutes detour
Checking out of here tomorrow & off down the coast roads to Los Angeles. The end is in sight... Mixed feelings about that...
Monday 24th of October - San Francisco
A sleep-in, then a non-eventful breakfast down near the lake shore on Grand Ave, before making attempt #2 at visiting Muir Woods. Surely the place would be less crowded on a Monday right? Wrong... when we got there around lunchtime, after some TomTom adventures in back streets & a couple of driveways (!?!) the place was, if anything, more crowded than it had been on Friday. Once again, all the car parks were full, as were the surrounding streets. We drove around the area for about 20 minutes, eyes peeled for anyone even remotely looking like they were going anywhere near a parked car, but other than possibly deterring some car thieves (maybe), nobody looked like leaving. So, reluctantly, we decided to. Good thing it was an overcast, grey day, so we could feel better about not going. We had other, more exciting, things to do with the day, therefore - off to do a significant amount of laundry in the Richmond area, where we stayed last time we were in SF. But first, we stopped at Fort Point, on the southern side of the Golden Gate Bridge for some photos, both for us & for a few tourist couples who saw our DSLRs & assumed we must be "professionals", so would take a better photo than them. Hope they weren't too blurry...
To Richmond & the laundromat, where we were approached by an elderly Indian (as in Chennai, not Cheyenne) looking for spare change to do laundry with. She seemed to have enough money to have bought breakfast & magazines to read in the laundromat with her partner, though, so we kept our quarters.... Washing machine loaded, we then popped into a little Italian cafe a few doors down, where the older Italian guy behind the counter knew what an espresso machine was &, more importantly, how to use it... our macchiatos were like being at home. Laundry done, off into the city to hit the shops & pummel the bank balance for a few hours. This included a visit to Tiffany's - no breakfast on offer, but lots of shiny things. We were there to get a birthday present for Julia's sister... & whatever else caught our eye. What caught mine was a simple-looking leather bracelet with a silver clasp. It fitted my wrist perfectly, without any adjustment, then Julia saw the price... $375US which translated to over $500 of our hard-earned dollars for something that was made from a couple of strips of leather & some leftover sterling. What we were really paying for was the Paloma Picasso name - which wasn't even engraved in the silver, but was proudly displayed on the price card. A nice piece, certainly, but not for that much... After some trans-Pacific consultation with Julia's sister about a necklace & finding some nice earrings for Julia, we left Paloma's craftshop homework back under its glass case & headed to H&M, where I found a couple of shirts &... a nice leather bracelet with a metal magnetic clasp for $10US. And bought 2 of them
Back onto the rainy streets & finally, after 3 attempts in 4 years... dinner at the Cheesecake Factory on the top floor of Macy's. A 30 min wait for a table, but that was an improvement on the last times, so we tried out a few display sofas on the next floor down until our number was called. A trainee waitress caused a few hassles & delays in getting our meals ordered & brought to us, but the food was good & there was plenty of it, so once again, stuffed to the gills, we rolled out of there & back to where Travis was sheltering in a multi-level carpark. A post-prandial excursion was needed, so we headed to the Palace of Fine Arts for some night shots & strolling
Then, to get the heartrate up & metabolism cranking, we drove down Lombard St - the extremely curvy bit. Taking a beast the size of Travis 'round those curves was like arm-wrestling a blue whale - heavy, unwieldy & you're not sure what part to grab onto. Heartrate up & day winding down, it was time to tackle the freeway back to lodgings in Oakland. Even though we've been here 3 days, I still seem to find new ways to take the wrong exit somewhere. Tonight's wasn't too bad... only a few minutes detour
Checking out of here tomorrow & off down the coast roads to Los Angeles. The end is in sight... Mixed feelings about that...
