San Francisco, CA

Hello San Francisco! We stayed in this little hotel in the center of the city, just two blocks from Alamo Square, and the Painted Ladies (aka the house on "Full House").  We walked down there to check it out; I believe the yellow one is the Tanner family home from the show. Then we headed down to Union Square, and took the historic cable cars down to Fishermans Warf to have dinner.  After walking around the shops for a couple hours, we made our way back to the hotel.

The next morning we had tickets from the ferry to Alcatraz for 9am. We got the headsets for the audio tour, that took us through all of Alcatraz, giving us stories and first hand experiences for inmates and guards.  It was really cool and a little creepy.  I also got a picture with one of the guards that worked Alcatraz back in the day.

After that we toured the rest of San Francisco.  We walked through Pier 39, went to Coit Tower, and Ghiradeli Square for some free chocolate from the original chocolate shop.  We had dinner at the pub in Ghiradeli square, and then walked around for a bit, until 7:30 when we took a segway tour of San Francisco.  It was really fun.  Billy and I were tooling around on segways all over the city. Up and down all the big hills.  It was fun.

The next morning we woke up to screaming people, and we looked out our window, and the police were blocking off the roads for "Bay to Breakers"  a famous San Francisco Foot race.  It is tradition for people to wear costumes, and drink all day watching the race, and then at the end join in, and gather together in the park for a concert.  It is really crazy.  People were even running the race completely naked.  It was hilarious, and we were lucky enough that the race past by the street our hotel was on.

Unfortunately Bay to Breakers made it really hard to get out of the city.  However we did it, and made our way to Sonoma Valley for a day in Wine Country.  We did tastings as at four different places, as well as an Olive oil tasting at the Olive Press.  It was really good, and really fun.  We got a tour of the Vinyard/Winery at Clines Cellars, which was cool because we learned all about the process of making wine, and the reasons for the different tastes.  It was awesome.  We ened up buying 6 bottles for wine, some from each place, as well as four bottles of Olive Oil; and those decision were tough, because there were so many good wines and oils. We had an awesome day in Wine Country, and it was a great experience.  

The next morning we packed up and headed out. Next stop the Redwoods forest.  Below are some pictures from San Francisco.

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