Tag Archives: San Francisco

Apple Existence, Vacation

GAR: Day Six – Half Moon Bay CA to Eureka CA (356mi)

Teased by the mileage and GPS as being a short driving day, we moseyed around this morning, getting our fill of free breakfast from the Comfort Inn (the chain we’ve elected to try to favor during the trip), and reloaded the Jeep. A week of only pulling/replacing a few items at a time had made for a very unruly interior. With Sio’s stuff all over the backseat, it looked like a teenager exploded back there. A reload was definitely in order!

Part of that timing was around the Apple Company Store at Apple HQ, which opened at 10am. We arrived a little early, but found the doors open, and started wandering about inside. Generally, the hardware/software choices were the same as what was available at other Apple Stores — and the same price! — but half the store was devoted to trinkets…. hats, shirts, cups, pens, pencils, pocketknives. The three of us frolicked in the aisles for almost an hour before finally landing on a basketfull of goodies. A few photos, and we were on our way.

As we left San Francisco, we crossed the Golden Gate bridge. This was a cool trek! I was really surprised at how much pedestrian traffic there was. It seemed like the pedestrian walkway was stuffed with walkers, skateboarders, and cyclists. It was a great way to cap our stay in San Francisco.

The drive through the interior of California on US 101 was pleasant, although uneventful. However, in Petaluma, we did eat at our first In-N-Out Burger. This is a western chain I’d heard of, but never nibbled at. Essentially, it’s a fast paced, short menued hamburger joint with pretty good food.

Also in Petaluma, while refueling, I had a couple of folks asking about the Jeep. One of them had never seen an Unlimited, which was a surprise to me. After some good conversation, we continued on up the road.

After a little more driving, we saw a sign for a drive-through tree. We figured we had to take a look. As it ends up, that was a very, very cool deal. In the bottom of a giant redwood, a 6′ x 6′ 9″ square was carved out, just big enough to drive a vehicle through. Guess how big the Jeep is? About an inch shy of those dimensions all the way around! It was a neat experience, and I’m glad we took the new Jeep through it.

We saw tons of motorcycles today. From what the folks at the drive-through tree told us, there was a big biker party going on about 70 miles south of Eureka. Seems like that’s about when we started seeing fewer in the rear view mirror, and more in the oncoming lanes. Fun to see all the bikes, but they sure must’ve had a big ol’ place to gather so many folks!

We jaunted the rest of the way to Eureka, found our hotel, and slept well after hitting the hay!

Vacation

GAR: Day Five – San Francisco

San Francisco was our oyster today, and we spent most of the day in the city, goofing off and exploring.

Our first stop was Japantown. Siobhan badly wanted to explore this area of SF. She’s really taken a shine to Japanese culture, and this was right up her alley. We visited the pagoda, and wandered around a couple of Japanese malls in the Peace Plaza. She found some manga books she was looking for, and introduced Beck and me to pocky. Pocky’s pretty good stuff… basically a cylindrical biscuit, dipped in a flavored candy, and quite tasty.

With Beck navigating, we found our way to Lombard Street, and took the new Jeep down the path. That was quite interesting! With the nice bricks, and tons of tourists, it sure felt like I shouldn’t have been driving on it. In fact, the tourists were really taking a hard look at us as we wiggled down the lane. This was as exciting a Jeep ramble as we would have in SF. 🙂

With Japantown and Lombard behind us, it was time to visit Pier 39. It was way past lunch, so we stopped at the Surfboard Bar and Grille for a little lunch. The lunch was good, but the more interesting things was watching the people enter the restroom. It was a co-ed facility, with lockable stalls (kinda like an airline stall). Folks would walk in on the opposite sex washing their hands, and jump back, look around to see if they were in the right place, and then ask the waitstaff for the correct restroom. The reactions on folks’ faces were priceless.

Knowing there’s nothing that goes better with seafood than some time on the water, we set up for an hour-long cruise of the bay. That was wonderful! I’d done that trip a couple of times, but it was the first time for Beck and Sio. We ran under the bridge, around Alcatraz, and up and down the bay. Cold air, the occasional churning wave and a taped commentary by “Captain Nemo” made for a great time on the water.

No trip into the city is complete without a little souvenir shopping, so we walked about, picking up t-shirts and other trinkets. We came, we saw, we bought. 🙂

Blatant Commercialism, General, Photoblog, Photography

New Photo: Old Glory and The Golden Gate Bridge

The US flag is illuminated brightly atop a boat traveling beneath the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco CA.



Old Glory and The Golden Gate Bridge is available in a variety of sizes, with an unframed print matted at 11×14, and framed images at both 18×24 (single mat) and 22×28 (double-matted). Please visit my sales gallery on Yessy if you are interested in purchasing Moonrise at Half Dome.