Travelogue: San Francisco, 2016

Hi, Everybody!  Not much gardening going on, here.  I get envious of the Fall garden pictures posted around the web--our Fall begins with rain and everything soon turns to brown mush.  And, no, I am not going to memorialize the brown mush in blog photos.  Instead, here are some cell phone snaps from our recent, Thanksgiving trip to the Bay Area.

Obaid loves In-N-Out (headquartered in Los Angeles, where we used to live, but unavailable in the Pacific Northwest) and I suspect he chose our hotel based on the fact that In-N-Out was our immediate neighbor.  This important criterion aside, our hotel was well-located--just a block or so from Fisherman's Wharf. 

Zachary is giving us the stink-eye.

This was Zachary's first trip to the Bay Area, so we planned the sorts of sight-seeing adventures that would appeal to an almost-ten-year-old.

A colorful restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf.

Tall ships at Hyde St. Pier.

We chose not to buy tickets to tour the ships, but there were plenty of interactive displays available on the pier.

We'd previously watched a TV Food Network show about the Boudin Sourdough bakery, so we made a special effort to see it "in real life".  We ate lunch there, toured the bakery, and bought a couple of breads to take away.

A tiled entry mat at Boudin Bakery--Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco.

The bakery makes specialty breads in a variety of decorative shapes--turtle, alligator, fish, crab, teddy bear, lobster, turkey, etc.  We bought a couple of crabs to take with us to Thanksgiving dinner.

Shaped breads displayed at the factory tour.

Bakery workers viewed from the tour catwalk.

Zachary really wanted to go on the open-topped, double-decker bus tour.  It was a good way to see the city and, had we planned differently, we could have bought two-day passes and hopped on and off at each destination around the city.

I enjoyed seeing the city from the slightly different perspective of the open-topped double-decker bus.

Zachary's favorite part about the tour was that the lower-hanging street trees came inside the coach and would whack you if you weren't ready to duck.  

This tree amused us--it was hung with over-large pine air fresheners.  A local resident told us this was a neighborhood protest against the cooking smells (heavy, icky, fried food and super-yummy bbq smoke) issuing from several nearby restaurants.

Air-freshener tree.

The tour crossed the golden gate bridge.

Golden Gate Bridge from the bus top.

This utility vehicle (called a "Road Zipper") was the neatest thing!  It picked-up and then replaced the road median to create two alternate-travel lanes.  It was able to achieve this without interrupting traffic.

Road Zipper at work!

On our last full day in the city, we went to the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.  It is a good natural history museum.    We had lunch at a restaurant located just outside the park and Obaid and Zachary took photos at a small magic store.

Zachary and Obaid.  The disco-y magician is funny, right?  The rabbit's got some serious 'tude.

At SFO (the San Francisco Airport), there was a display of flight attendant fashion through the years. This Pucci outfit was kinda eye-popping.  Frankly, I think it's hideous and I wonder why they chose to go SO trendy?  

Emilio Pucci uniform for Braniff International Airways.

And now, safely back home in Seattle.  Happy Holidays, everyone!