AZDonna

I went to San Francisco with my girlfriends, Glenda and Alice, over the 4th of July week. Glenda and I left Mesa on Saturday morning and drove as far as Burbank. We went out for dinner and to a movie that evening (“Knight and Day” with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz) before returning to our hotel room. We got on the road the next morning in time to make it to the San Jose airport to pick up Alice, who flew in from Portland, at 3:30. We drove directly to our hotel in Pacifica and checked in. We could see the ocean from our room, but not well. Before we went looking for dinner, we stopped at the front desk to see if they had a better room available, and were told there would be one the next day.

We knew we were too late to make it up into the city to view fireworks, so we headed to the High Tide Cafe &  Creperie (specializing in omelets and crepes) close by for a bite to eat. After that we walked down to a public beach where folks had gathered with their own fireworks. It was rather amazing to us that fireworks are not illegal in California and everyone was shooting off cherry bombs, sizzlers and small rockets everywhere.  We decided not to stick around and risk getting struck, and headed back to our hotel area, stopping for one geocache along the way. Monday morning, we switched to a room on the outside of the hotel where our window overlooked the ocean. If the internet connection had been faster, the hotel would have been perfect. We really loved it.

After dropping our luggage in our new room, we headed into the city, and started our touring for the day at Fisherman’s Wharf. It was so cold, foggy, windy and overcast, that Glenda and I bought fleece jackets from a street vendor to wear over our sweaters and sweatshirts. We wandered around for a bit, then got a sourdough bread bowl full of clam chowder (for Alice and Glenda) and chili (for me) at Boudin.

Then we got tickets for the double decker hop on-hop off sightseeing bus. The tickets were good for two consecutive days, so we decided to stay on the bus for the full circuit of the city the first day, and hop on-hop off on Tuesday. We started out up top, but had to move down where it was warmer and out of the wind before crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. Alice snapped our picture with my camera as we rode around.

Along the way we passed the spectacular building that houses City Hall, the Pyramid building, and Union Square.

We got a great taste of what San Francisco looks like.

On the return loop, we hopped off at Ghiradelli Square, where YES! they do give out free chocolate samples. Of course, that just makes you want to buy more chocolate, which we did.

We thought we would eat at the Cliff House, and drove up there. It was still early (about 5:00) and we weren’t hungry enough to make the steep prices worthwhile, so after looking over the Sutro Baths,

we headed south and ate at Outback near our hotel, then hit the sack to get rested up for day 2.

I recently went to Boise to spend some time with the Holsingers. It had been very rainy for several weeks prior to my visit, but I must have taken some nice weather to them because it was lovely while I was there. The first couple days were a bit on the cool side, but it warmed up nicely on the weekend.

Megan had her spring dance recital while I was there (it was the reason for scheduling the visit that weekend), and she did beautifully! She is in her 7th year of ballet, and switched from tap to modern jazz this season. I was stunned at how much she has advanced this year in her ballet level. Each year, I usually see some progression, but this year she was really beautiful! Compared to the other girls in her class, she had the most grace, lightness and beautiful smile of anyone on stage. And I promise you, I’m not prejudiced! 🙂

While Megan and Robin were at dress rehearsal, I took Steven geocaching for the first time. He got the idea very quickly, and we found three caches, and only had one DNF (did not find). He especially loved going through the treasures in each cache container and making trades for items in my bag of goodies. (Incidentally, I believe I came home with more treasures than I went with. Sorry, cache owners!) After Megan was through with rehearsal and we had a bite of early dinner, we all three went out to see if we could find any more caches before dark. We were successful on three more, with another DNF. (In our defense, there was a Cold Stone Creamery next door that was calling out to us, and we had to abandon the search to go get ice cream.)

Robin had to work for six hours on Friday, so the kids and I had a day of adventure. We found five caches, two DNFs, and searched for two others before reading the logs to discover they had been muggled and/or removed. We also had breakfast and lunch out, and made an eventful stop at the bank. I’ll write about that adventure in another post sometime.

I walked each day with the kids on bikes or scooters. They have a beautiful neighborhood, so it was a treat to have a new walking track for several days.

We went out for lunch after church on Sunday and the waiter snapped our picture for us. This was the same restaurant Robin and Ken took Richard and Dianna to the week before, and we also sat out on the patio overlooking the river.

Robin mentioned the possibility of coming to Arizona for Thanksgiving. I don’t know if they’ll be able to make it happen, but I really hope they do. It’s been a couple years since the whole family has been here and Arizona is certainly a great place to get away from the cold and snow of Idaho in November.  Maybe Dale can join us again.

My trip home was uneventful, and I was back at work on Tuesday.