Day 7 - San Jose

Today we woke up at the Queen Anne Hotel for the last time. If you read Melanie's previous post, you would have seen the links about this hotel supposedly being haunted. And when she told me about it, I thought to myself, well that could be true, but knowing that the owners of the hotel had made it look this way, and maybe the house isn't THAT old.. I dismissed it. Well boy was I wrong!! So, the first 2 mornings at this hotel we woke up either by my cellphone alarm clock, or just on our own. The point is that we didn't use the alarm clock, and to the best of my knowledge the alarm wasn't on when we went to bed. Anyways, 6:41am comes along and the alarm goes off. Spanish Talk Radio wakes us from our slumber... Strange. I smack a bunch of buttons and switches to make it stop but, no success. The volume knob wouldn't go completely down... Anyways strange occurence. (Melanie note: Ian doesn't remember the buzzer going off a few minutes later, but I do! Unless I dreamed it... Haunted!)

Headed down for breakfast, packed and left a very foggy San Francisco by about 10:30am. By the way.. FOG is listed as one of the sights to see in a 'San Francisco Attractions' pamphlet. Made our way into San Jose to George and Sue's place. Soon after we arrived, George took me to one of his jobsites, and Sue took Melanie out for lunch and on an errand or two. The jobsite that George took me to was for an Industrial Kitchen that produces frozen, ready to eat pre-packaged soups for Costco and some other restaurants. Giant kettles, cooling racks and freezers, ohh and a spice rack that is monitored by Homeland Security! Anyways I went around and took a few photos for George and met a few of the plumbers. It was quite interesting. We also went out for lunch to California's own "In-n-Out Burger" Where the line cooks all wear thos old paper fast food cook hats. And it was a pretty good simple burger. There's only about 6 items on the menu there, simple...

After a busy afternoon, we all arrived back at the house, we went through some old Holm/White family pictures that George had. Sue made us a delicious chicken enchelada dinner. Following that, we took a drive up to the Estate of a friend of theirs, which seemed to be in the coutryside. The beautiful house, tennis court, infity pool, guest house, brand new Aston Martin, and dual bocceball court was located right beside some protected lands that belong to Stamford University. It was beautiful. This all belongs to friends of George and Sue.

We made our way back to the house again and went to bed.











(Melanie Note: Took two hours to update this post!! Ridiculous!! Will do today's tomorrow if time! LOOOOOVELY pictures to come of our drive today - Day 8!)

Day 6 – San Francisco

We had a lovely, late, slow morning today. While Ian showered, I updated the blog. While I showered, he loaded the pictures. By the time we left the hotel it was after 11! That would be normal for us at home so it feels a bit like a Sunday today. It's pretty overcast here today, and windy, but we put on our walking shoes and our jackets and went for a walk.

First, we walked to Japan Center which is really close to the hotel. Basically it's a mall of Japanese stores and restaurants. It was cute, and I was tempted to buy a cute little tea set, but we ended up just taking a few pictures and heading on our way. We walked from Japan Center up Post Street for a while, and then we switched down to Geary Street until we got to Union Square. Union Square is a label-shopper's dream. You're surrounded by Sak's 5^th Ave., Tiffany & Co., Macy's, Neiman Marcus, and about a bazillion other huge names in apparel and jewellery. We wandered in and out of several stores for quite a while and finally came to THE BEST Old Navy I have ever seen!! It was enormous! It was bigger than the one in Seattle and I thought that one was huge! I spent about $100 on some summer clearance items, but came out with 11 items! I love Old Navy clearance stuff. It's not expensive to begin with but when you get tank tops for $5, and dresses for $20, it's really hard to resist! Besides, I didn't buy anything in the expensive stores. However, all I really need to buy are shoes and do you think I can find any? Not yet!

Following my shopping excursion we went for a late lunch at Mel's Diner on Mission Street for good old fashioned drive-in food. I had a BLT and Ian had an Avocado Burger (the patty was meat, not avocado) with bacon, and we both had strawberry lemonades. It was actually pretty darn good, but by that time we were both starving and we hardly stopped to breathe while we ate.

From there we walked up to the Chinatown gate at Grant and Bush. We wandered through Chinatown for a while, and in and out of the shops. They really were fantastic but Ian and I couldn't bring ourselves to buy anything that we figured we could probably get at home for about the same price. I'm considering getting one of the silk, hand-painted "Happy" coats (like a light housecoat, cover-up thing) but as they start from about $50 here I'm not in any rush to get one. I'll look at home. Besides, Ian and I really are planning on coming back sometime. We still haven't been through Golden Gate Park!

From Chinatown we walked down to California Street and enjoyed the view from Nob Hill. We walked past the Fairmont Hotel (also the location of the Fair's mansion before the 1906 Fire) and the Flood's mansion, then over to Van Ness, down Van Ness, up Sutton and finally back to the hotel!

Doesn't sound like a very exciting day but we sure covered a lot of ground and we're spending the evening relaxing at the hotel. Ian picked up some beer on the way "home" and I grabbed a tea from the lobby and here we sit. Neither of us are hungry after our late lunch so we've snacked on some chocolate and some chips and I'm feeling pretty happy to just be relaxing a bit today.

Tomorrow, on to San Jose to spend more time with George and Sue!

*Note* Photo of Mel's Diner is the location closer to us on Van Ness, not the one we ate at.
*Note* Photo directly after the Fire Alarm is of the exterior of our hotel.

One final but very important note, or if you're considering staying at this hotel and if you have some time on your hands and you enjoy a good ghost story, check these out! :D

http://hotels.about.com/od/hauntedhotelscalifornia/ss/haunted_queenan.htm

http://www.ghost-trackers.org/current_investigations6.htm

Day 5 - San Francisco

We had a loooong but wonderful fifth day of travels. We started early - an 8AM hotel pick up, and a 9AM San Francisco city tour with Tower Tours. Our bus driver, AKA Driver, was amusing and informative, as all good tour drivers should be, and was excellent at navigating the city streets. He managed to turn the bus around by some miracle twice in Golden Gate Park - he didn't know the park was closed for some walk or something and tried gallantly to get us through! Kudos to him!

Our tour included a drive around Fisherman's Wharf, with Driver pointing out some well-known San Francisco landmarks, including the cable cars, Boudin Bistro, In and Out Burger, Ghirardelli Square, etc. We then travelled through the city streets and Driver showed us the Transamerica building, many Victorian houses, the Presidio, Lombard Street, Lombard at Hyde (the winding road), China town, and Van Ness (HWY 101 and also where they blew up the large mansions to stop the fires that started after the 1906 earthquake).

We then headed to the Golden Gate bridge which was mostly shrouded in fog, but it did clear a bit while we were there. Ian and I walked onto the bridge for the requisite tourist shots. Driver then drove us across the bridge (which was a surprise for me and I was really quite thrilled as I was afraid we wouldn't get to drive over the bridge - we had come through Oakland rather than San Francisco on our way down to San Jose. Silly to be so excited about this, I know, but I was!)

We tried to visit Golden Gate Park, as mentioned before, but found the roads in closed. So we drive by the beach instead - beautiful area for walking if you can stand the crashing waves, fog, and cold wind!

We drove up Twin Peaks for breathtaking views of the city and hardly any fog (just a bit around the Golden Gate Bridge, surprise surprise!) Then we saw Alamo Square, City Hall (sooo beautiful! It would be neat to do a tour there sometime), and along the way Driver was very good at pointing out houses and buildings owned by celebrities and famous wealthy families (the Greatful Dead House, Danielle Steel's House, Francis Ford Coppola, Robin Williams, the Fairs(of the Fairmont Hotels), Bill and Hillary's accomodations when they are in town . He also pointed out locations were movies or tv shows were filmed, such as Full House (actually, this was filmed in Hollywood, but the house where it was "set"), Party of Five, Mrs. Doubtfire and Dirty Harry.

We definitly highly recommend a San Francisco city tour if you're coming to the city and don't have a lot of time to explore!

After the city tour we were dropped off at Pier 33 for our Alcatraz tour. We grabbed a bite to eat and Ian had a beer and then we got on the boat for the short but windy and choppy ride over to the Rock. We did the audio tour, which is fantastic - you really feel Alcatraz come alive and you can imagine yourself there witnessing events on the island. There's a short video as well which is quite informative on the history of the island, from a military post and prison, to a federal prison, to the location of aborginal demonstrations in the 60's, to the current tourist attraction and park (you should have seen all the gulls nesting on the parade grounds!)

Upon returning from Alcatraz, we had a bite to eat at Pier 39 (not seafood, sadly, as the lineups were atrocious) and wandered around exploring the touristy shops. Ian found me a wonderful pair of sea otter socks!! I've never seen such a thing and if you were ever one of my students (which of course none of you are) you would know I LOVE sea otters!!

We stood in line for our turn on the Cable Car ($5 one way) and just took it along Hyde to Jackson St. (we hung off the side and froze our little fingers off) and then we walked from there to our hotel. We MUST get some pictures of this hotel before we go!!

More exploring of San Francisco to come!

Day 4 - Ukiah to Santa Cruz

Ukiah turned out to be alot like Kamloops with the extreme dry heat and the surrounding golden hills, A desert climate. We didn't do anything there, it was too hot to go outside and we were exhausted from driving all day. And we were anxious to leave and get on the road again. We were headed for San Jose to mee up with Uncle George and Aunt Susie. I would like to mention something at this point for anyone thinking of driving in or out of Ukiah, California. When you are driving on the Highway and you all of a sudden notice a really horrible flopping noise and you feel the car shake, the kind of shaking that you feel when you get a flat tire.... Don't Panic! It's not a flat tire it's just that stretch of the HWY sucks!! I had to pull off the hwy to make sure we didn't have a flat..

With Ukiah out of the way, and having our fill of Redwood Trees from the day before, we didn't need to make and stops until San Jose. Unless of course, you count being stopped in traffic(see picture below). Our GPS outlined our trip for us and at the beginning indicated it would be a 2h45min drive. I believe that turned into closer to 4 and a half??

We eventually arrived at George and Sue's place and were very happy to be welcomed into their air conditioned home! It was really great to see them. We figured that it had been about 11 or 12 years since the last time we say eachother. After a nice little visit and tour around their house and George's gardens, we went to grab a light lunch at 'Flames', and then headed over to see Greg Holm and family at their house in Santa Cruz. Melanie and I decided we are very envious of their 2 BBQs and a Green Egg Smoker in their nice big backyard. Not to mention the fridge, large countertop, running water, large garden, small firepit and sand volleyball/badminton court in the back yard.

We had a great dinner of Beer Can Chicken, Bean Salad and Corn on the Cob. Truely delicious. But more than that it was great to finally meet Greg and his family. Putting the missing pieces together. Just 2 more to go. I think Melanie is ready to go back any time and take up Greg's offer of Surf Lessons.

After a great visit there we headed back to San Jose area to pick up our car, then we headed to San Francisco. *Note* GPS is a life saver on road trips. Maps are good, but GPS is really helpful in a large, unfamiliar city, in the dark. We arrived at our hotel very late, but checked in without any problems. Headed to bed because we knew we had a busy next day exploring the city.

(Group Picture below from left to right is: Jessica (Travis's Girlfriend), Travis, Terryne, Greg, Melanie, Sue, George, Ian. Absent from the photo is Hailey(sp?).

Day 3 - Gold Beach, OR to Ukiah, CA

I wasn't sure if we were going to be going anywhere this morning. While Ian was in the shower, I turned on the TV for some background noise as I started organising and re-packing our stuff. When Ian got out of the shower he took one step out of the bathroom and froze, immediately drawn to the movie (Flightplan - Jodie Foster). I can't remember what was going on, but everytime he looked at it he was just unable to move. We needed coffee. Luckily for us we found a fantastic cup just down the road (see previous post).

The morning drive along the coast promised breathtaking views. We got fog. It was a morning full of fog. I don't actually remember if I saw more than three feet of ocean at all today actually. However, we did get trees! As promised by the lady at the Info. Center, "You're gonna see trees." Brilliant. We began to move inland, away from the breathtaking... fog... and the temperature started to rise! The temperature at Gold Beach last night was probably about 10 degrees. In Ukiah today it got to 38! That's quite a difference from where we started! Well we took a few scenic routes and stayed in the shade much of time. Drove through the Avenue of the Giants, and another scenic route (the name escapes me..) Actually, it shouldn't escape me, because of my poor navigation skills we drove past it twice! I saw the sign for the "entrance" and said to Ian "That looks promising, we should take it!" However, we were at the southern end of the route already and ended up detouring north again. I may have even directed him right through a tree at one point! Lucky for me, Ian loves me anyways.

There's really not much to report, I got the two biggies I think: Fog and Trees. Here are some photos!