Entries Tagged 'Out and about' ↓

Walking from bridge to bridge

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The whole time we’ve lived in San Francisco we’ve thought we’d like to do the walk from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge. This week an initiative started that Xero is taking part in, the Global Corporate Challenge which is a worldwide workplace heath and wellbeing event that companies take part in to get their staff moving – teams of 7 from companies around the world wear a step-counter and count their steps for 16 weeks with the goal of doing 10,000 steps a day. I’ve joined a San Francisco team. So a great opportunity to do this walk and have our steps count for our team.

The walk is 6.1 miles – we caught the bus to the city side of the Golden Gate bridge and walked along the trail from there through Chrissy Field, through the marina and Fort Mason then on a trail up and over to Fisherman’s Wharf and along to the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge. It took 2 hours and about 13,000 steps. It’s a really pleasant walk, sometimes on gravel, sometimes on trails and sometimes on the sidewalk. The only unpleasant part is through Fisherman’s Wharf – so many tourists and smelly crabs!

Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge

Alcatraz

Fort Mason Green

Golden Gate Bridge

Alcatraz

Fisherman's Wharf

Ferry Building

Bay Bridge

Cafe manners

I always feel bad if we’ve finished our coffee in a busy cafe and there’s someone juggling their plate of food and cutlery, wondering how they’re going to pick up their coffee when the barista calls their order, so I usually given them a nod and leave so they can use our table. And of course I hate it when we visit a cafe and want to sit down with our coffee and food and there are no tables free. That’s the main reason that puts me off going out for breakfast here. The people on their own with laptops at other tables don’t seem to feel the same guilt. I’d love to sit in a cafe with my laptop for hours but I never do – I think I’d feel bad the entire time!

Last day of 2012 on the Bay

Not really a boat person but looking out the window this morning the bay looked like glass and I’ve always wanted to go across to Oakland to where the Blue Bottle roastery is. Oakland does have a bit of a rep for being fairly rough so I was a bit nervous, especially when we were walking around under the freeway looking for Blue Bottle. The roastery was in an industrial area a couple of blocks from the bay with a tiny coffee bar in the corner. After our coffee we got the ferry back to San Francisco.

We went through a long canal out to the Bay passed a couple of the big container ships we always see out our window and got up close to the cranes.

New Year's Eve - Oakland Ferry trip

It was pretty chilly on the water but very cool to go under the Bay Bridge and to see the city from the water.

New Year's Eve - Oakland Ferry trip

New Year's Eve - Oakland Ferry trip

New Year's Eve - Oakland Ferry trip

Happy Christmas Aardvark

Dear Zipcar,

We just wanted to say Happy Christmas and thanks to Aardvark – we’ve spent quite a bit of this year with you since you came to live in our street and we sure do appreciate you! You’ve driven us all over the place and have always been there when we needed you for an hour or 2 or for a day. (Except for that one time your spot was empty and the nice lady at 0800 zip tried pooping your horn because we thought you were just lost in the car parking building but we couldn’t find you and it turned out you were actually missing and out all night and we still don’t know what happened to you. We had to go to Sacramento that day in a Mini, we would rather have taken you but we didn’t have much choice). You’ve driven us to the airport a few times, the supermarket numerous times, helped us take our visitors out to Napa, out to the East Bay to our friends for barbeques and Thanksgiving, to the hospital on a wet day to get vaccinations and most importantly to get our California driver licenses (the man had lots of questions about buttons and knobs and because we’d gotten to know you so well that part of the test was easy! As well as being comfortable with the width and length of you for turning and backing and going down the little streets he tested us on).

So Happy Christmas and thanks again for always being there when we need you – hope you get the gift of a lovely Zip Spa so you’re all sparkly and clean for the holidays. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again soon. We always pick you.

Aardvark the Zipcar

Happy Birthday Bay Bridge!

This totally made my day! A very excited tweet from the Bay Bridge (@sfbaybridge) after he saw the photo I tweeted with a cupcake and candle for his birthday today. (ALL CAPS is his excited, alarmed, freaked out (when lightning strikes or cars catch on fire) voice.)

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We really did specifically go out and buy a cupcake and candle and used up half a box of matches trying to get the candle to stay alight for the photo. Of course we didn’t throw the cupcake in the sea to be eaten by birds or fishes by the time it got to him so we ate it! Went to all this trouble because of a tweet the other day lamenting the fuss for the Big Orange Bridge’s birthday this year (we went to the party with Mother & Father were here in May). Plus we LOVE the bridge 🙂

Another parental visit

Our last set of “big” visitors (I say that to mean more than just one person for one night) was The Mister’s parents – here for 10 days. They chose October thinking the weather would be good – not too hot, not too cold as we head into autumn and San Francisco often has an Indian summer so they wanted to chance that. Well. There was a heat wave. 30+ degrees! And apart from that, must’ve been the best weather that any of our visitors have had – no rain, no fog (they were disappointed not to see it on this side of town) and not cold at all!

By now we’re a dab hand a looking after guests and touring them around the city and environs, although M&F-I-L had been to San Francisco before so didn’t need the all-new-visitor tour.

  • There was plenty of walking around the waterfront with us, and on their own when we were at work. They quickly became fans of Blue Bottle in the Ferry Building. We even got to see the NZ America’s Cup yacht up close!

Bridge scenes

NZ yacht

  • There were lots of nights at home with wine and chips and home cooking and chatting around the table (oh so many questions about our lives here!!)

Dinner at home

  • A couple of trips over the Golden Gate Bridge and every time (including their hop-on-hop-off bus tour) except once, the sky was clear and bridge and views of the city were stunning

Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco view

  • A day trip to Sausalito was very pleasant, tourist season and summer is beginning to wind down there and we were thrilled to get a table outside the deli where we normally get lunch with great views over the bay while we ate. A German tourist who said she was terrible at taking photos volunteered to take a photo of all of us on the pier – turned out to be a great photo and my favorite of us all for the trip. Amazing how clear San Francisco is in the background.

Sausalito

Sausalito

  • 3 days of their trip was the California Zephyr train trip from San Francisco to Denver – you can read my train log here and the day in Denver here. It was certainly a great experience and after I got over the initial motion sickness feeling I was OK being on the train but it was a lot less salubrious than I thought it would be! Some great scenery although some delays meant we didn’t see the Rockies in all their glory.

All aboard the Zephyr

  • Back in the city we spent a Saturday fully enjoying the Ferry Building market and were entertained by the daredevil Blue Angels doing aerobatics and fly-overs as part of Fleet Week.

Saturday at the Ferry Market

Fleet Week - Blue Angels

Fleet Week - Blue Angels

  • The day before they flew out we took them to Napa – our favorite day trip via Yountville for coffee at the Coffee Caboose then to Dean & Delucca for lunch supplies, then to Alpha Omega for a tasting and picnic that lasts just about all afternoon because it’s so lovely sitting in the warm shade watching the water fountain.

Passing through Yountville

Alpha Omega

Alpha Omega

House guests with kids

Dean, Steph and Aidan have just visited for 2 weeks – having a child to visit meant we had to adjust the schedule, dragging everyone around coffee shops was not really an option! Here’s the only photo from the trip with all 5 of us in it and it’s a great photo!

Muir Woods

On this trip I realized that Dean and I have been bestest friends for more than half my life – quite a special milestone!

Day trip to Napa

  • We all went to a San Francisco Giants baseball game the day after they arrived.

SF Giants game

  • We visited the Ferry Building and it became a bit of a regular day trip for them when we were at work for ice-cream and coffee.
  • The Mister and I slept in on a pull out couch and lived out of a suitcase – but I could see the Bay Bridge lights as I fell asleep every night.
  • I had a long lunch hour at the shops with Steph – she’s quite a good shopper and even took one of those large mesh bags around a shoe shop for when you clearly intend on buying more than one pair of shoes!
  • 4th July picnic and Golden Gate Park, homemade burgers (including vegetarian patties) and fireworks.

4th Juy day at the park

4th Juy day at the park

4th July dinner

  • Had cars and noise and hundreds and thousands and finger prints all through the house.
  • Napa day trip for the boys with me as their sober driver – burgers for breakfast, coffee break in Yountville, wine and picnic lunch and meat tray for dinner.

Day trip to Napa

Day trip to Napa

Day trip to Napa

Day trip to Napa

  • Day trip to the outlet mall for the girls while the boys went to Santa Cruz to play on the beach and go to the movies. There’s no food at outlet malls so we ate peanut butter rolls I’d taken in my handbag and to fight off caffeine headaches we subjected ourselves to (get ready for it) Starshudderbucks – Steph was disgusted by her iced coffee that was just a bucket-o-cold black coffee with ice in it and my latte with an extra shot tasted like savaloy water. Awful.
  • Dean changed the batteries in all our smoke alarms after we were woken one night to the flat battery beep.
  • Got a sitter and enjoyed a night out at a vegetarian/vegan restaurant with a view of the Bay Bridge. I even wore shoes that didn’t require socks!
  • Visited an extremely large Toys R Us out in the ‘burbs.
  • Very foggy day the one time we went especially to see the Big Orange Bridge.

Foggy Orange Bridge

  • Did the Muir Woods and Sausalito circuit.

Muir Woods

Gay Pride

We joined in the Gay Pride Parade celebrations last weekend. What a huge event! And a lovely spirit that the whole of San Francisco gets behind.

Gay Pride Parade

Market Street was closed down and the parade went on for about 5 hours – we stood there for about 2.5 hours of it, and after getting back from coffee and lunch with some visiting Xeroes (from New Zealand and Germany) it was still going!

Gay Pride Parade

We waved our rainbow flags and enjoyed the motorbikes, cheer leaders, balloon costumes, tiny shorts, over-the-top dresses, dancing queens, some celebs, a gentleman sausage and lots and lots of smiles and goodwill.

Gay Pride Parade

Gay Pride Parade

Gay Pride Parade

Out for coffee

3 weeks in San Francisco

Can’t believe Mother & Father’s 3-week visit has been and gone – so much planning for their time here and now they’re home. The weather was fab, just a day of light rain and temps always around 20. When I look through the photos I’m amazed how blue the sky is in all of them.

Turns out there are a lot of things to do around San Francisco but and we also got out to a few places we hadn’t been before on a couple of long weekends. This is one of my favorite photos of their time here

Waterfront wandering

Apart from dragging them around a load of coffee shops, some known, some new, and a couple of rest or shopping days, here’s a run-down of what we got up to:

  • A day in Berkeley – coffee shops, University of California Botanical Gardens, dinner, sunset from Treasure Island and we almost got to drive back over the Bay Bridge as the lights came on

University of California Botanical Gardens

  • A day in Napa – stopping at Yountville to marvel at the idyllic little town and drink coffee from the Caboose, Dean & Delucca supplies for a picnic lunch at the Alpha Omega Winery and dinner at a BBQ joint in Napa

Yountville Coffee Caboose

Alpha Omega

  • Went to the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th birthday celebrations – walked through Chrissy Field, visited the bridge history tent, ate fried green tomatoes from a food truck, watched (with hundreds of thousands of people!) awesome awesome fireworks coming out of the bridge accompanied by a light show and songs featuring San Francisco, waited in a line around the block with hundreds of people for a free bus back into the city where we arrived home freezing after midnight for a hot drink!

Golden Gate 75th birthday celebrations

Golden Gate 75th birthday celebrations

Here’s the official fireworks video (about 20 minutes long)

  • Took a long weekend road trip to Santa Cruz, Big Sur, a secret beach with purple sand and Monterrey where we visited the aquarium, dined at some fabulous restaurants (one seafood, one Italian) and drove through miles and miles of fruit and vegetable crops and saw the world’s supply of artichokes!

Santa Cruz

Big Sur

Big Sur

Pfeiffer Beach

Monterey

  • Drove for a day around the top spots – Muir Woods, Sausalito, new coffee shop on Filmore, Lombard Street, Coit Tower and home passed the Trans-America Tower

Muir Woods

Sausalito

Jane's on Filmore

Lombard Street

Coit Tower

Coit Tower

TransAmerica Tower

  • Poked around the Saturday market at the Ferry Building and had a BBQ feast out at Bev and Dan’s place

Saturday at the Ferry Market

Pleasant Hill BBQ

  • Joined the hippies at the Haight Street festival and wandered through Golden Gate Park

Haight Street Festival

Golden Gate Park

And somewhere in between all that, Mother & Father had a few days at Yosemite and went across to Alcatraz. A pretty full 3 weeks overall!

Human 75 for the bridge’s birthday

Here’s the photo from the helicopter after a crowd of us in orange attempted to make the outline of the Golden Gate Bridge on Saturday but had to reassemble at the last minute into a 75 because there weren’t enough people. Gorgeous orange line shows roughly where we were on the 7 – Happy Birthday bridge!

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