San Francisco

Wow, 4:00 is really EARLY! That's when the alarm sounded this morning--the crowing rooster on our phones swept away the fitful sleep that had taken our minds and bodies 4 hours earlier.  

Out of bed quickly, we got dressed, finished packing and met our wonderful friends, Carl and Mae for the drive to the airport. With no traffic, the drive was easy and uneventful.

Check-in and security was also easy. The TSA Pre-check helps a lot. Not having to practically undress is so much better than earlier flights-it makes flying so much more enjoyable.

The flight itself was nice. We hit a few pockets of turbulence, but nothing severe. We arrived at SFO safely on-time. And our luggage arrived in good order.  So, the trip over was good.  

We had decided to take a shuttle to the hotel. Although it took a little while to show up, it did and the van carried us into town and our hotel, the Francisco Bay Inn on Lombard street, 3 blocks from the Crookedess Street in the USA, it's a neat street worth seeing.

Check-in at the hotel went well. We were able to claim our room at 11:00am instead of the normal 3:00pm. That was nice; we were tired and needed a nap. So, we did, and it helped tremendously. As a bonus, our room actually has a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Today, most of it was shrouded with fog, but we got a pic of the support tower rising out of the fog.  

We got up and walked several blocks to a hardware store that sold MUNI tickets. We got 3 day tickets that covers city busses and trains in the area. They will make ground transportation much easier since we didn't rent a car. We also installed an app on the phone to help guide us to bus stops and times. 

So, we caught a bus to Fisherman's Wharf, to see the sights.  

This was Janice's first trip to San Francisco, so she was somewhat dumbfounded at all the sights: city streets so steep they appeared to be impassable, weird people, the seals on the docks at Pier 39, all kinds of ethnic foods, and even some seagulls attacking a guy on the sidewalk who happened to be carrying a tray of open food. It's not like Lumberton or Clayton!  

In a couple of hours, it was time for a real meal. We had eaten only muffins and junk food all day, so we went to the Mona Lisa restaurant near Chinatown. Malcolm had eaten there twice before, and it was excellent again. After dinner, we road a bus back to near the hotel and finished the day with about 3 blocks of walking to the hotel.

To sum it up, we had a great trip across the continent, got to the hotel just fine, arranged transportation, had perfect weather, and a great meal on the first day of our adventure. God is Good.