Thanksgiving in San Francisco

(Craig writes) Even though it was raining as we traveled up the California Coast toward San Francisco the scenery continued to be beautiful beyond words. The fog and clouds seemed to play hide and seek with the mountain tops, and at times with the road, as we wound our way up and down the steep hills and occasional valleys through Santa Barbara, Monterey, Big Sur and Carmel. At one point we pulled over at a vista ocean view and saw a large "herd" of elephant seals on the beach. Elephant seals are so named because the adult males grow an elephant trunk looking appendage on their snout and can grow to be 2 1/2 tons in size!

Our hotel in Oakland was across the bay from San Francisco so after we had a good nights rest we drove over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. Driving in San Francisco is a hoot! It seems that the speed limits and red lights are more like suggestions than laws here. After seeing some of the city we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito for lunch.

On Thanksgiving Day we drove back into San Francisco for a closer look at the city. Parking at the Fisherman's Wharf near historic Pier 39 we walked over to Hyde Street and boarded a cable car headed "uptown". The city is very hilly with some very steep streets and we were thankful that the brakes on the 100+ year old cable car were still working okay! Following the fun ride on the cable car we made a sweet stop at Ghirardelli Square for some chocolate then down to "fish alley" for a delicious lunch at one of the restaurants on the pier. After lunch we drove up and down some of the more famous streets including Lombard Street, (the curvy one you've seen in so many TV shows and movies).

This was an unusual Thanksgiving for us in that we had never been 3000 + - miles from our families on the holiday before. We were able to talk to them though and had fun using our niece's recipe to make chicken and dumplings for dinner when we got back to our suite, (thanks again Meredith).