San Francisco

We didn’t have a lot of time in San Francisco… it was more of just a convenient stop for us on our way over to Yosemite.  Scott and I have been twice before - once on our honeymoon 18 years ago.  And Scott’s parents took the girls there a few years back.  So since we’ve all been there and got to do all the typical touristy stuff then, we didn’t try to pack too much into one day.

We started off trying to find Lombard Street (the curviest road in America) so I could drive down it... again!  However, we didn’t have a map, so we had to rely on the GPS.  She was lost as a goose on the streets of San Francisco.  She had us going in circles.  So we parked, and Scott said he thought we were close and maybe we could walk around and find it.  We got to the bottom of a set of stairs on the sidewalk, most of which were hidden behind trees and shrubs and flowers.  But the sign at the bottom of the stairs said it was the stairway to Coit Tower.  Had I known what Coit Tower was and that it overlooked San Francisco from the TOP of an enormous hill, I might have realized that if we were at the bottom of the hill and the Coit Tower was at the top of the hill, there had to be lots and lots and lots of stairs to get to it.  There were lots… 350 to be exact.  Yes, I counted.  If I was going to walk up them, I wanted to know how many there were.  Besides, it kept my mind off of the excruciating burn happening in my calves and thighs.  We got to the top and the view was beautiful.  We could see the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, the Bay Bridge, and tons of boats and ships in the water.  Here are some pics of our trek up the stairs.  My view is always from the back of everybody else cause that's the view I get since I usually have to make some occasional stops to keep from having a stroke!

Starting up the steps to Coit Tower

More steps

The view at the top

View of San Francisco from the top of the hill at Coit Tower

Coit Tower

 

At the bottom waiting on me, as usual!

After our trudge up to Coit Tower, we had to trudge back down.  But before we did, we roamed around trying to find Lombard Street.  No luck.  So we headed back to the car before our parking meter ran out of time.  On our way back, here are some other fun sites we saw along the way.

 This is a group on a tour of the city on "Mall Cop" two-wheelers!

Street Show

More from the street show

More street performers - they were everywhere!

Accordion bus

Posing on a trolley car

Then we were off to have dinner with Mike and Julie Scott, some friends of ours from Winston-Salem who had moved to Memphis last year.  They were on vacation, and just happened to be in San Francisco the same time we were, so we planned to meet up at Bubba Gump’s at Fisherman’s Wharf.  We had a great dinner and really enjoyed getting to catch up with them while we were there.

Dinner at Bubba Gumps with the Scotts

T-shirt at Bubba Gump's gift shop

Fisherman's Wharf

After dinner we drove through China Town, and then we decided to try to find Lombard Street again since Scott had found a free map of San Francisco.  At this point we only wanted to find it because it had become such a challenge to locate it.  Ha!  So we shut off the GPS, Scott did the navigating, and we found it this time!  Got a few fun pics, and then it was time to head back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.

China Town

China Town

At the top of Lombard Street

At the bottom of Lombard Street

 

Golden Gate Bridge at Sunset

In the hotel lobby in San Francisco