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Published: August 3rd 2008
On the last leg of the trip now but are certainly going to make the most of the 4 days in San Fran! Pretty much landed and hit the town straight away in a mood to shop, shop, shop - and boy did we! The streets are lively and the buildings are high, there is only a population of around 800,000 people & only half of them seem to have a crazy imaginary friend that they shout at constantly. Theres wonderful architecture and recognisable buildings like Tiffanys and Bloomingdales were names we knew of but had never been in, so it just had to be done. We literally shopped for a day and a half only stopping for chai latte (Jackys new love) and mocachino for Jon and were pretty exhausted after all of that. We booked ourselves in for a few tours.
The first was Muir woods (named after the environmentalist who was heavily involved in the protection of the environment in this area). The woods are made up of coastal redwoods, the tallest trees on the planet & the setting for the Star Wars movie scenes including the ewoks. We then moved onto a lovely village just
along the bay called Sausalito, which although is only across the golden gate bridge it boasts several degree difference, more like the weather you'd associate with California rather than the foggy city of San Fran. We gained a fascination for one of the art galleries there which housed Dr Zeus prints and some crazy 3D models of characters from within his barmy world, they were amazing! We booked ourselves on the Alcatraz night tour, something we'd been really looking forward the whole trip. You can see the island from the bay as its just over a mile out and that must have been the frustrating thing for the inmates, they could see land but had no chance of getting to it (the waters are very cold with strong currents, a couple of guys attempted to swim it.... but their bodies were never found, make of it what you will). We took the audio tour which proved to be brilliant and paced our way in and out of the cells, through the oppressive corridors, sat for a while in the dining area and just generally submerged ourselves in the story of alcatraz and some of the inmates (including Al Capone).
The next day we went to Yosemite national Park. The journey was fairly arduous (14 hr round trip) but so worth it. Getting out of San Fran and seeing the changing landscape was really interesting and then moving into the National Park and watching the granite hills turn into mountains, which then turned into higher mountains with deep valley bottoms, it was amazing. There was actually non managed forest fires on the edge of the park while we were there and although this is something they deal with regularly it seemed odd to watch the smoke starting to cloud your view throughout the day. We had a few hours to ourselves and took off on a few hours walk, taking in the sunshine, merrily getting lost and eating ice cream. Finishing up we headed back to a bar we'd found and Jon drank the best black & blue Mojhitos he'd ever had as we raised a glass to marriage, 3 months of pure freedom, fun and new experiences.
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Maria
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Wowie!!
Are you sure those Muir Woods aren't maned after Muireann? Want to know some wierd coincidences? Yesterday we watched an episode of Michael Palin (pole to pole?) and he was in San Fran. Saw all about Alcatraz and the taunting view of the city. Later today Fionn was reading a book and came over to show me a pic of redwoods in yosemite park. Then, we were deciding on a DVD and Fionn wanted Star wars, I wanted Horton hears a who (Dr seuss) (We watched Eldorado, which is totally unrelated). Then I read this Blog!! Honest! I think you're journey through space and time took a detour to Rockchapel! Also... Muireann of Muir woods loves Ponies, Fairys Penguins... and what's her fave star wars charachter? Ewoks!!