San Francisco

Brian spent the first day of his vacation in SF after I picked him up from the airport. We did a little sightseeing, since he had never been to the city before.

We were both up pretty early. I went up to the hotel roof to check out the view and took this picture of Coit Tower. This tower is a memorial celebrating firefighters.

We left the hotel by foot, since it can be difficult to find parking in SF. We started by hiking uphill to the crooked part of Lombard Street. After climbing up this street, we decided to search for breakfast.

We headed north, towards the bay. The view was quite nice, although it was a bit hazy. We headed to the marine park, which is a dock run by the NPS that has several interesting ships restored along it. I figured this area would be touristy enough to find several restaurants.

We settled on the Buena Vista, on Beach Street. We had a tastey breakfast that included some sourdough toast. Our table was right by the window, which looked out on the cable car station and the bay.

We wandered along the bay a bit and found the station for the Duck Tours. (This tour company was made famous by a couple important trademark cases that Brian had to read for school.) It was a great tour. We rode in a vehicle that can go on land or water (hence the duck name). We all got duck bills to blow into that made a super loud duck noise. Once we were out on the water, I even got to drive the boat for a while.

Giants stadium & downtown from the water:

The duck!

We walked along the marine park dock and looked at some of the boats.

We stopped to see the sea lions at the wharf. This year, there are only a small number of sea lions staying in SF Bay. It is not exactly clear why that is. In previous years, there have been many more.

The flowers were blooming beautifully in SF, a marked difference from what we had left in NJ.

After walking along fisherman's wharf a bit, we decided to head back to the hotel to pick up our stuff and drive out of town. Overall, we had a nice time exploring SF.

I will end our SF post with a couple more pictures of us from the Duck tour. Quack!