Rain and Samantha's Excellent Adventure: Golden Gate missing.

Samantha: And then, we were in San Francisco! Due to limited moneys and time, we took the train into the city for one day, and rode the bus out the Golden Gate Bridge. It was hiding the fog as it usually does, but the pictures are still pretty wonderful. We also managed to get to a UU service that morning. We met this really great guy named Joe (namedrop, Joe, I hope you're watching!) who gave us the savvy on Fisherman's Wharf ($$$$) and told us to skip straight to the bridge, so we did. He also enlightened me to the Presidio area and the potential for a masters in Sustainability...hmm... We didn't make it to the golden gate park, but next time a must-see. We walked down Mission street, and had dreams dashed of joining the Sweater Party due somewhat in part to our lack of woolen knits, and largely in part to the train schedule. Mission street is a place I would like to hit up with some cash and a good group of people, some day (hint hint). Here are some artsy pictures of us having fun, have to run off to Santa Fe now! Much love.

Rain: I was very, very excited to go to San Francisco. I have been told by several different people that I am a "San Francisco sort of girl" so I wanted to go there and check it out. Going their had been initial goal for the trip and it somewhat marked our halfway point. We didn't have as much time in the city as we would have liked, but we got to see some very cool things while we were there. It seems like the kind of place where you need at least a good week to check stuff out, and because of timing we only had a day and a half. But given that, I think we did a good job of getting ourselves around by public transportation and seeing some of the site.

Going to the Unitarian church there was neat- not as big of a congregation as in Portland, but the church was huge and old and made out of stone with a beautiful little courtyard in the middle. We went to the Golden Gate bridge and found out about some of the weather quirks that the city has. For example- it can be sunny, warm, and beautiful in the rest of the city but that has no bearing on what the weather will be like at the bridge. We hopped a bus up the hill to the bridge and quickly ascended into what was basically a ground-hugging cloud. As the pictures show it was so thick that you couldn't see more than maybe 50 feet in from of you. We walked around on it, took some pictures, and then had a hell of a time getting back down to the city again (it was labor day, which meant probably double the usual visitors). I had almost forgotten what it was like to be warm, by the time we got back on a bus, but then it dropped us lower down in the Presidio Park and it was as sunny and shiny as ever.

We headed over the Union Square part of town, which seems like Frisco's answer to the Times Square region of New York City. We looked at all the stores, saw some street performers, and had a cute little date at a malt shoppe where I had my first ever chocolate malt (yeah, they're pretty good). Then we walked back to the train and headed back to San Jose for the evening.

Wandering around everywhere made me want to come back and stay, which I might at some point. I suspect that I may indeed be a "San Francisco sort of girl"... well, apart from having enough money to actually live there. Details. We'll see how things go.

Pretty church tree.

Magical disappearing bridge- people on bikes don't care.

Is Rain a giant, or is Samantha a munchkin?

Oh dear.

All is well.

Samantha ruining Rain's picture....or more likely, making it better.

so far down

so far up

where'd it go?

MMMBRIDGE

Making normal people uncomfortable is kind of Samantha's thing. She thinks Forest would call this "samfoolery." Perhaps more reason for her new nickname, Shenanigans.