California, Part 2

Thurs 9/17

We got up around 8 and prepared for the day. We got on the Powell St. cable car at the turn around and rode it a few blocks (just for the sake of riding a cable car) to Post St.

We were bad, and used our one-day MUNI passes for TWO days, ha! So we did get our money's worth at least! We then walked to the Avis car rental office, and got our car - a Nissan Altima!! It was a great car, actually, and I kind of miss it now. Anyway, we had a car and were on our way to Muir Woods! Holy crap, though, driving in San Francisco was SCARY. Until last week, I was unaware that people in CA don't stop at stop signs, so I had a very angry woman behind me screaming "GOOOOOO!" at every intersection. The stop lights are in weird locations and people will just walk right out in front of you. It was the craziest place I've ever driven.

Very pretty, though!

OK, so eventually we made to the freeway and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge!

After the bridge, we had to wait in stopped traffic for 20 or 30 minutes as someone flipped a camper trailer they were towing, and after a brief stop at Subway (where they have sourdough bread and avocado!), we made it to Muir Woods (coastal redwood forest).

The trees are huge and beautiful. We saw several deer as we walked around and took in the sights.

On our way out, we stopped in the gift shop/cafe for a few minutes, and here is a big difference between CA and FL that really makes me miss CA: this place was selling organic pastries (among other things), and out on the condiment bar, the ketchup was organic. Only in CA I guess. Or maybe Vermont, lol.

So, after that we left Muir Woods and headed back to SF to make our boat to Alcatraz. We came around a corner and saw the Golden Gate bridge draped in fog - an incredible sight.

Apparently the toll is $6. Good thing we had cash! We made it back to the Wharf and found a garage and paid an exorbitant amount of money to park the car. We got to Pier 33 and waited a few minutes in the stand-by line and then were allowed on the boat! It was a little cold and very windy on the ride out to Alcatraz but it was a beautiful day.

We got to the island around 3ish and started our explorations. It is such a gorgeous, amazing place and full of American history. The actual penitentiary can be a little creepy when you think about the things that happened there, but there is just so much more to the island than the prison.

We spent a few hours looking around at everything, and we did the cellblock audio tour and learned a lot about the penitentiary. Lots of crazy stuff happened there!

This is the view the prisoners had when they entered the recreation yard. I contest that at least they had a good view; Mark thought that made it worse.

This is the view from the front of the cellblock administration building. Not too shabby, though I'm sure it was a little different 60 years ago.

After several hours on "The Rock", we finally went back to San Francisco on the last boat of the evening. Visiting Alcatraz was definitely one of the highlights of our trip.

Once we were ashore, we retrieved our car and considered finding a few other places to check out, but we were really hungry, and it was getting dark, so we decided to go right to dinner. Originally I had made reservations at Sutro's at the Cliff House, but right before we left for CA I found another restaurant that seemed cool and wasn't quite as pricey. So we ate at Park Chow, which sounds kind of like an Asian restaurant, but it's actually a little, somewhat quirky cafe right by Golden Gate Park (hence Park). They have a lot of organic foods, including an all organic breakfast every morning, and packets of organic sugar on the tables, le sigh. For dinner I had a corn pudding, which was kind of like a cornbread casserole with this corn/vegetable/mushroom sauce on top. It was unique, and really good. For dessert, I had warm ginger cake with pumpkin ice cream - yum! After we ate, we drove up to Twin Peaks for a view of the whole city.

It was awesome. Eventually we made our way back downtown, and after about an hour, 6 or 7 wrong turns and major frustration, we made it to a parking garage right by the hotel. Parking at our hotel would have cost over $50 for the night. At this garage 2 blocks away, it was $6, as long we we got the car out by 8AM. Sold!!

Friday, 9/18

We got up at 7:30, got the car, found some Starbucks, finished packing and left the city to pick up Ji and Yuliana. After some major Tetris-ing of our luggage, we fit it all in the trunk of the Altima! We made a couple of pit stops at Ross, TJ Maxx and Trader Joe's (!) for supplies, and got on the road. Then we got off the road for some Subway. But then it was back on the road, and we were on our way to Yosemite!

Getting closer!

The drive to the mountains wasn't quite as scenic as expected, but once we started going up in elevation it was really cool. Actually, in some places, it was REALLY HOT. We stopped at a turnout and took a few pictures and I swear it was over 100 degrees.

Dear California: Please buy guardrails. Thanks.

And then we saw something that's foreign to Floridians: a sign that says "Next 5 miles, turn off air conditioning". So we did (though it was probably unnecessary), and UP we went. Around and around, sharp turns, and NO GUARDRAILS. By the time we got to a gas station I was feeling a bit anxious, but I powered through! We drove through Stanislaus National Forest and stopped at the Rim of the World Vista to take pictures.

Eventually we got to the guard booths, paid our fee, and we were in Yosemite National Park!

It was beautiful, but kind of a scary drive, what with the extreme lack of guardrails. The drive to the lodge took a lot longer than expected. Google said it was 4 hours, from San Francisco, but it was more like 6, not really counting our stops. Finally we got to Tenaya Lodge and checked in!

Hooray for free valet! Our room was really nice, and it better have been considering how much we paid for it!

We had dinner at the lodge at the Sierra restaurant. It was expensive, but good. We ordered drinks with dessert...and it turns out that I'm not a fan of hot cider with goldschlager. Gross! Anyway, after dinner I did stupid homework and then we went to bed early, as I would need to get up early to do MORE HOMEWORK!

To Be Continued, again!