San Francisco.....Day 2

Day 2 of our San Francisco adventure started out at the Ferry Building

at the Farmer's Market which is held every Saturday morning.

Mike, Brian, Jen and I spent a delightful hour investigating

all that the market had to offer before

jumping on a bus headed for Napa.

The flowers were beautiful

Jen found the peaches delicious

We found some fabulous ham and cheese croissants and I also

had a bag of cherries.  I've bought some cherries yesterday

here in Phoenix and believe me, they just don't compare

to the delicious ones I had in San Francisco.

Wine Tasting at our first winery.

No we didn't drink it, our server

just brought cool big bottle for a picture prop.

Still at the first winery.  Sadly I can't remember the name

of the winery, but our tasting server was Tracy and she

was WONDERFUL!  Very personable and pretty generous

with her tasting pours!

This was at our third winery.....don't remember the name of this

one either......are you noticing a pattern here? 

We did not enjoy this tasting as our "wine educator" was a

pompous  a**.  (pardon my language)

Right before this picture was taken our "wine educator" told us

that we needed to smell our wine with one nostril at a time, so I plugged

one nostril and sniffed and promptly cracked up laughing along with

Brian and Jen.  It was one of those laughing fits that you can't stop. 

Truly....we were pretty discrete about it AND we were not the only

ones in attendance that were not happy with our "wine educator".

The Andretti winery was a different story as we had

a nice tasting at a beautiful winery.

No, we didn't drink this whole bottle either.

Brian and Jen at Andretti Winery

Part of our wine tour included a 45 minute ferry ride

back to San Francisco.

Dinner and a good night's sleep.......

Bay to Breaker's run tomorrow!

Judging Eyes

Remember the old saying "You can't judge a book by it's cover"?
The last 5 days has been a series of re-learning this old saying.

Last Friday we set our alarms for 3am so we could make our 6am flight from Phoenix to San Francisco.  Mike has always wanted to run in the Bay To Breakers run, Rafael graduated from college and had a reason to celebrate, Brian and Jen decided to go as well, so off we went.....all seven of us!

Our first task upon entering the city was to figure out how to navigate the BART system.  (with 4 large suitcases, several assorted carry-on bags, a stroller and a baby!....babies DON'T travel light!) 
San Francisco is a fabulous and facinating city!  Full of very friendly and helpful people.  After unloading our luggage at the hotel we headed off to find some breakfast navigating yet another public transportation....the F trolley.

The first day was spent at Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, Zazzle Expo (to pick up our race bibs) and the Museum of Modern Art.  PHEW!  A full day already!  Checked into our hotel and met up with Brian and Jen who had taken a later flight.

Can you see us under the sign?

Mia carried the sourdough bread we picked up at Boudins at the wharf.

Alot of time was spent looking at maps!

This t-shirt quilt was diplayed at the Expo and

contained shirts from past Bay to Breakers run.

Painting at the Museum of Modern Art.

We stayed at the Renior Hotel which turned out to be quite old and charming with a wonderful and helpful staff.  Unfortunately the hotel was just on the fringes of the Tenderloin district, one of the worst areas of the city.  We were a little nervous, but the hotel was safe and clean and it turned out to be quite interesting being up on the 5th floor and looking down upon a side of life that we never witness.  One night we saw a man rummaging thru the garbage can.  We assumed that he was looking for cans to recycle.  Well that was just what he was doing.......Our eyes widened abit when we realized that he was peeing in the can!

This "Cinema" has a facebook page!

The highlight of our first day was meeting up with Casey and Amy.  Jenny and Rafael met Amy when they were interning at Walt Disney World in Florida.  Amy and Jenny frequently worked together as Chip and Dale.  Casey is a family friend whom we have known since she was a toddler.  She lives in San Fran now and is in grad school there.

Thanks goodness for these savvy city girls!  They showed us yet another form of public transportation!  There was a muni bus that was in a tunnel underground!  Who knew?!?  So off to dinner we went!  At rush hour!  Everyone was getting off work and getting on the muni.  We crowded on with the rest of the city and off to a restaurant in the Castro district.

Turns out that the Castro district is known for flying rainbow flags.......
We had a really nice dinner and enjoyed visiting with Amy and Casey, and on our way out of the restaurant I could see from the corner of my eye that 2 people had fallen in behind our little group of 9.  Mike was in the back of our party and was holding Mia on his shoulder where she was looking back. 
I guess that when these 2 gals fell in line behind us Mia looked at them and I guess her eyes must have widened a little.  The response from one of the girls was "That baby has JUDGING EYES".  The "ladies" were dressed in leather strips placed stratigically around their bodies and one girl was holding a chain which was attached to a collar on the other girl.  Wish I had a picture!
Dinner AND a SHOW!
It was a fun evening.....one that I'll remember.

Sweet Mia says good night and God Bless!

tammy