The dilly on San Fran

Let me tell you right away: San Francisco is no Portland! That said, San Francisco is a beautiful and surprising city with weather that is like an ever changing wardrobe. This past weekend we visited SF for the third time.

The first trip was a quick stop on a west coast driving tour in 1999. The second trip was about 3 or so years ago and that was a good time. We got all around the city in three full days of sunshine. I was sick with a nasty sinus infection, for which I could procure no meds before leaving Denver. That didn't stop me though! I put a box of lotion tissues in my bag, took Sudafed every four hours and topped off my situation with cappuccinos. Ahh, but that was the last trip.

This trip started with several days of the RailVolution conference. Very informative but I'm not going to bore you with the details. I will say that the highlight was staying at the Hyatt Embarcadero! I had a view of the Ferry Building and the Bay Bridge from my 5th floor room:


This is the view in the morning with clouds:This is the view at sunset:
In an early blog post I mentioned my privileged life - this is yet another example but the stay spoiled me.

On Wednesday night Sandy arrived and on Thursday we moved to a different hotel...but that is coming up later.

Prior to Sandy's arrival I had about three days in SF. Aside from the conference sessions and mobile tours, I got to "postcard row" and took a ferry to Sausalito. Postcard row is a reference to the view of the Victorian row houses that act as the foreground for a city view from Alamo Park in the lower Haight area (you've likely seen this kind of picture before - it's like the Maroon Bells and Colorado):

The trip to Sausalito was on Tuesday afternoon - the last sunny afternoon of the week. I did get this photo of the Golden Gate Bridge and some evening clouds moving into the city:

The ferry ride was windy:
On Thursday morning it had not yet begun to rain. We took the Alcatraz tour. It was more interesting and better put together than I had imagined. We toured the main cell building then went for a walk on the Agave trail. Sandy smartly booked the 1st boat in the morning and we ran into few people on our walk - but jesus, later the island was crawling with people.

This is Sandy on the Agave trail:
Shortly after we returned to the mainland it started to rain. The next two days were spent walking through SF in the rain. Here is me on the way to Lombard Street (the popular, twisty-turny section), it's a steep uphill for three blocks - this picture is meant to convey the angle (but you can see how wet my pant legs are - by the end of the day it would be soaked to the knee):

That was San Francisco for us.