A day in the park (among other things...)

Let me set the scene... It's a beautiful day, slightly chilly, but nothing we intrepid Michiganders can't handle, right? It's also a Sunday morning, and Kate and I are awoken at the butt-crack of dawn by an impatient Aunt Rose. She said she was going to let us sleep in, and she did - until about 7:00... After getting ready, we headed up to the city (our hotel was about 30 miles southeast of the actual city, which wasn't too bad. We stopped for breakfast, then headed out to Cliff House, where sea lions are supposed to hang out to give the tourists a good show. They weren't interested in entertaining, so we didn't stick around there too long, but headed out for Golden Gate Park - the 1,000 acre park right in the middle of the city (Kate said it reminded her of Central Park in New York). The park was pretty nice - nicer I'm sure for those people who don't get to experience much of that type of nature. There were a lot of trees and grass, an arboretum, which we toured briefly, but looked pretty much like any botanical garden you would see anywhere else. There was also a Japanese tea garden, which we went in and toured - very pretty.


Japanese Tea Garden - Golden Gate Park

Trees in the park

After touring the park, we called my cousin Christine, who lives out in the San Francisco area to see if we could meet her for dinner. She and her boyfriend invited us to his house for burgers that night, and we headed off to explore until it was time to head over there. Our next stop was the Golden Gate itself. It was somewhat impressive - I mean, hey, it's one of the most famous bridges in the world, probably, but I didn't really think it was all that big a deal. Of course, I'm used to the Mackinaw Bridge, which is longer (I think), and in my opinion, prettier. While on the other side of the bridge, we drove through Saulsalito, which used to be an artist's colony back some time ago, then croseed back over the bridge to go to Chinatown for lunch. We had awesome food at a little restaurant, looked around some, then went down to the Cartoon Art Museum before meeting up with Christine and Gary for dinner and fresh home-made margaritas - yum! After the margaritas and the great dinner, we were exhausted, and went back to the hotel for rest and relaxation before getting up early Monday morning for our tour of the Rock...


San Francisco skyline