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Published: January 1st 2011
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Sunday, 26th December – Day 86
Not too early a start today, up at 8am, mistakenly slept through the alarm again! Luckily we made it to the airport in time for our 10:25am flight to San Francisco. Had a bit of a scare though when the lady at the tours and transfers desk told us that McCarran airport require you to be there 2 hours prior to your flight or you go on stand-by…. not stand-by again… we think that she must have thought we were flying internationally as we had no problems checking in, clearing security and getting on our plane (including getting breakfast), oh well, a heart attack first thing in the morning is a good way to wake up!
Arriving in San Francisco, we found a transfer to our hotel, right on Fisherman’s Wharf, literally walk out the back door of the property and you’re on Jefferson St that runs along all of the piers. We got in about midday, dropped off our bags and found some lunch. We ate at Johnny Rockets, soon to become our favourite spot. It is a classic 50’s & 60’s diner with rock’n’roll music and the best burgers in town. Mish tried
the Mini Three Combo, mini hot dog, mini cheeseburger & mini chilli dog with onion rings, Jess had the Double Smoked Single burger with a side salad (honey mustard dressing) but that wasn’t the best part, it was the SHAKES that brought us back…. Choc-Banana, Dark Chocolate, Cookies & Cream and as many flavours that you can think of! They even brought you out the left over shake that wouldn’t fit into your glass so it was like 3 drinks in 1!
We needed to go check out the options for Alcatraz as we had heard it as pretty popular, and it is. Unfortunately when we got there they were completely sold out until Thursday (we were only here Sunday & Monday), so we were a bit disappointed we couldn’t go on the island and see the prison. We settled for a Bay Cruise, under the Golden Gate Bridge (GGB), and around Alcatraz but we had to come back tomorrow to get these tickets. Next on the list was finding some sleeping bags and mats for our Egypt tour. We looked up two places that sold camping gear and were off on a mission to conquer the hills of San
Francisco, and let me tell you, there are definitely enough hills, steep, steep ones at that! We kept watching the trams go by, wishing there was room, but they are very, very popular and always chock-a-block full. One guy told us that he had waited up to an hour in line to get on one. So walking it was… how unusual! Boxing Day meant not much was open apart from the large department stores (and the crowds!!), all of which mainly sold clothes and home wares, not camping stuff. We tried the cheaper sounding shop first but it was closed so we had to settle for the North Face, a brand name store… we managed to pick up sleeping mats here, the ‘Thermarest’ ones that were recommended and they weren’t too expensive, but the sleeping bags were over $190 each, so we decided to wait until we got to LA, maybe a better range to choose from. That was pretty much all we did today: the late nights, lots of walking (over 3kms today) and full days catching up with us again. We went back to our room, ordered some pizza and went to bed. Tomorrow was our day for
exploring.
We slept in a little, trying to catch up, we were up at 9am and on the search for brekky. We passed the usual, McDonald’s & Burger King, considered Subway but ended up deciding on a small but busy little café called Joanie’s Diner. It was fantastic, Jess got her pancakes, but this time they were proper homemade ones with bananas on top, Mish had bacon, eggs & pancakes with freshly squeezed orange juice, free refills!! We had seen these little yellow GOCars buzzing around yesterday so we looked into booking one of these for this afternoon. Then we walked down to Pier 39 and watched the sea lions play around on the pontoons, bought our Bay Cruise tickets for the last departure at 4pm, stopped in at a candy store for some snacks and headed back to pick up the GOcar.
The GOcar Experience.
Now for those of you that have never seen a GOCar before, it is a 2-seater convertible shell that runs on a 50cc scooter motor, and is bright yellow. All passengers must wear a seat belt and helmet and it is designed to go no faster than 30 miles an hour (60km/h). For some
this would mean a nice easy putter around town but not for Mish… we flew as fast as we could, up and down all the hills (it did struggle to go faster than walking speed up some hills!!). It has a GPS unit built-in that talks to you as you go, giving you information about sights and directions to avoid the hills that are too steep for it to travel (so that you can avoid the embarrassment of getting out and pushing!). We saw a lot of the major attractions of the bay including the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, Twin Peaks and Lombard St – ‘the crookedest street in the world’, all within the space of 3 hours and 15 mins. There were a few scary moments, when we thought we were going to be squashed by oncoming traffic including buses, you are sitting so low to the ground it almost feels like you would fit under them! We did have to get out and push a couple of times because being a scooter it doesn’t have reverse… Mish also managed to get the key stuck in the ignition which meant one of us had to baby sit
while the other went to look at the sights and then swap (luckily for us, Jess managed to get the key out!). Another contraption that we found was that the sidebars actually lifted up to ease one’s entrance into the vehicle, as long as one remembers to duck when getting in! We had heard about how many people fall in love with San Francisco and we can see why, we had a great time exploring but there is so much more to see. It was a mad dash finish to return the car and then a 3-block sprint to the ferry… but we made it. It was well worth it, as we heard a bit of history about the bay, the bridge and the Island we hadn’t heard yet, plus it was sunset, the perfect time for photos. The cruise went for 1 hour, and so upon returning to the pier we settled (didn’t take too much convincing) on Johnny Rockets for an early dinner; this time we both chose something different to eat but loved it again. We were back at the hotel room by 6:15pm and Jess was fast asleep by 6:30pm! Mish was getting a cold, so
crashed as well after watching a bit of football (NFL). Day 87 Finished!!
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