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Published: August 31st 2008
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SF
For you, Peetrum. Yum-oh! As I'm sure Patrick will be happy to know, on our way up to San Fran on Saturday (08/23/08) we got so hungry that we couldn't wait any longer, and we headed in to get some delicious burgers at In-n-Out. I've never seen a burger place so crowded in my life. It was definitely worth the wait, though. Luckily, right across the street from the In-n-Out was a BP gas station, for which we have ~$150 in free gas cards, courtesy of Florida Blood Center. This was the very first BP station we've seen all trip, of course, so we wanted to use our free gas. Little did we know how hard that would be. We have 15-$10 gift cards which, apparently, must be used one at a time. Since we had to see the attendant to swipe the card and prepay, I gave up after six trips in, as a large line was forming behind me (Nickey was in the car laughing her tookus off). Needless to say, it was a little frustrating filling the tank up in $10 increments, especially as this only got me two gallons at a time. Finally, humans fed, car fed (mostly), we were on
SF
Cody's first view of the Golden Gate Bridge. our way to the Golden Gate Bridge.
When we reached San Fran, it was just like I had seen in the pictures: huge city built on huge hills. I loved seeing the bridge as we drove up to it; it couldn't have been neater. The top of the bridge was covered in fog so that I couldn't even see the peaks of the towers. The bay was filled with boats, Alcatraz in the distance, right between the GG and SF Bay bridges. Sadly, we checked too late and tickets for Alcatraz (which happens to be a National Park) were all sold out (as you have to book a privately operated ferry to get there). The Birdman will have to wait until next time, but enough of The Rock, back to the bridge. We drove across and pulled into the parking lot on the north end, getting out to walk out along the bridge itself. The winds coming across the bay were amazing, they almost blew us over a couple times. It made me nervous thinking about what happened to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge back in 1940! We walked halfway across and stood there for a few minutes, enjoying the
SF
Going over the bridge, YAY!! views, before we got cold from the incessant wind and headed back to the car. The San Franciscans are sneaky; they didn't charge us to leave their city on the GG bridge, just to get back in, and they charged us five bucks!! Goal number two, while in SF, was to find some sourdough. Nickey, having been to SF before, suggested that we head down to the Fisherman's Wharf and walk around. We did this and found a great place, Boudin's, which also housed a sourdough museum! Nickey and I got to learn all about the history of SF and why it is such a unique and perfect climate for sourdough (because the intense fog acts like a natural air conditioner/humidifier, keeping the temperature perfect for natural sourdough yeasts!). We also got to taste four different breads that they make right there (sourdough, ciabatta, chocolate raisin, and walnut). Nickey, not having any statues to mimic, stood there watching the dough assembly line (kinda hard to pose like dough). Before we left, we bought a loaf of sourdough for dinner, then we headed up to Petaluma to stay at a KOA, our second experience with Kalifornia Kamping.
The next day,
SF
Looking back across the bay. Sunday, we decided to forgo our original plan of visiting Rosie the Riveter National Monument in SF, honestly, because it required a trip across a toll bridge, and we were out of cash. So instead we drove out to Point Reyes National Seashore, and got yet another stamp in our NP Passport. We were a little tired of hiking at this point, so we decided to drive out to the lighthouse. Apparently, Point Reyes sits on a peninsula that is a part of the Pacific plate, and is moving north at the rate of about 2 inches per year. Some untold thousands of years ago, it used to reside where present day Monterey Bay is (can you calculate how long ago that was, Grandpa?). The lighthouse sits way out into the ocean, and is the windiest and foggiest spot on the entire west coast; at one point, when people still manned the fog horn, they had to keep stoking the fire to produce steam for nine days straight. Every year there is an estimated 2000 hours of fog (83.3 full days). From the parking lot, we had to walk about 0.4 miles out to the point, and then descend 308
SF
San Fran from across the bay. steps to the lighthouse proper, where we got to go and see another fine example of Monsieur Fresnel's brilliant work. At Point Reyes, they still use a fog horn, automatically sounding every thirty seconds, day and night. We got to see inside the lighthouse, up inside the lens when the NPS employee opened it for viewing, as well as some of the neat old equipment that they used to use when the lighthouse was staffed by real people. After we were done with the lighthouse, we went and walked around Petaluma and got a chai at the Starbucks. We went back to the campsite before dark (finally) and made some delicious chili for dinner that we ate along with our sourdough loaf from SF. We went to bed early, in preparation for our drive up the coast to the redwoods the next day, which I was really excited for, because I've wanted to see the redwoods ever since I was little.
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