7.14-15.14 San Francisco, CA (Petaluma, CA)

I have lost track of the days since Seattle. We have been moving very fast and doing very much within the past week. I still need to catch up and reflect on the Pacific Northwest. I also need to take time to share my reflections from this trip thus far. It has almost been a month since we began this journey across the United States.

We were very lucky in San Francisco. We did not know exactly where we would be staying. I had a few friends but no definite hosts until a few days before our arrival. It didn't help that we did not have an exact arrival date. I love friends and their friends. 

We have been blessed to stay in a beautiful home in Tiburon, California. It is about 20 minutes north of San Francisco. We have been spoiled with this place and it has felt very relaxing compared to our running around on the roads. We drove all through the night to arrive to here on July 14, 2014. I didn't want to further inconvenience our host by waking him up before dawn. So when we arrived in the Bay Area, I took advantage of seeing parts of the city before everyone woke up and traffic became terrible. I had been to San Francisco once before in 2012. I remembered the traffic and the streets. This time was a different trip entirely. 

Day 27- 

We saw the sun rise over California State Route-37. Both of use were exhausted. I kept driving on to the city while Christina slept and I sang along to the radio music. As we neared the city, it was the strangest experience to see the fog roll along the hills. I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge. Last time I was in SF, I only saw it from a distance. It was beautiful. Within my first hour in city, I accomplished the highlights that I had failed to experience on my first visit. 

My destination was the Palace of Fine Arts. I had seen the beautiful images of the site. I saw the top of the dome from a distance during a bus ride from Presidio last time I was in SF as I tried to get myself to the airport in time. This time I parked alongside and ran out to explore the structure at dawn. It was eerie. It was massive. It was overwhelming. The figures on the structure were creepy. It was a beautiful space but I did not like the feminine figure that were on the corners. They were all exactly the same and looked as if they had gotten in trouble and had to put their head down. I walked around the fountain. It was awesome to see all the bird species. 

Walked back to the car and drove to the house of our host and fell asleep in our car seats. It was a still too early and I didn't want to wake him... he saw our car and invited us in as he rushed out to work. We fell asleep on his couch and woke up hours later. We had been awake for 24 hours with only a few naps in between. Sleep was glorious. 

We woke up late that morning. It was late for us to go into the city of San Francisco. We didn't have much of a plan. It was a heavy day. We were pulling ourselves together. We decided to go to Petaluma to check out the Lagunitas Brewery. We enjoyed a tour and learned about their colorful history. It felt like a fun place to work and their beer is really good. After our tour, we went to Ray's Deli for delicious sandwiches. It was getting late and we still didn't have much of a plan or energy to really do anything. I got to visit Mrs. Grossman's Sticker factory. It was too late to go on a tour but I was really happy to spend money on the same stickers that I had when I was a kid. We spent the evening wandering around the Petaluma riverfront.

Day 28-
We still had not formed much of a plan but we figured we would explore San Francisco today. Our first mission was Dim Sum in Richmond. We had a feast! We ordered so much food; it would last us the whole day. After our big meal, we needed to walk around to work off the food. My friend recommended a visit to Sutro Baths. I was expecting to see the beautiful remains of the old building but they were really ruins. It was nice. We relaxed by the ocean and walked along trails.

We got back into the car and worked our way through the city. We went to 16th & Moraga to climb up the mosaic tiled steps. We discovered more stairs up above. We were rewarded with a beautiful view of the whole city. We drove down Lombard Street, one of the steepest and curviest streets. We wandered around Chinatown before we drove to the Bay Bridge. The sunset and we watched the Bay Lights installation by Leo Villareal. We ate the last of our dim sum left overs sitting by Cupid's Span sculpture by Claus Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen.