Saturday

Sally and I decided to spend our 23rd anniversary in San Francisco. I had gone to San Francisco in May to the JavaOne conference, but I had to leave early because my granddaughter, Madison, arrived three weeks early. Sally hadn't been to San Francisco since '92. This provided us with the perfect excuses for visiting.

Sally and I arrived in San Francisco Friday evening and took the BART to the Civic Cente,r where we had less than a block walk to our hotel. After checking into the hotel, Sally and I had a wonderful dinner at Kuleto's. I'd been to Kuleto's in the past and thought she'd really like it, which she did.

The following morning, while Sally was getting ready I went to the tourist information center and picked up a couple of transit passes that were good for the buses, street cars and cable cars. We grab a bus and hit our first destination, the Legion of Honor, San Francisco's Fine Art museum, which is located on the west end of the city. We needed to get two transfers to the museum, but we had no problems getting there. We didn't have to wait very long at any stops and the bus dropped us in front of the museum. Everyone we ran across on the buses and in other public places in San Francisco was very friendly. The Legion of Honor was fantastic. The night before we left, I went on line and was pleasantly surprised that their featured exhibit was "Monet in Normandy." It was a breathtaking exhibit. That alone would have been worth the trip.

After we left the museum we took a free shuttle that the museum provided to the De Young Museum. We weren't sure what to expect, but we decided that if we didn't like the museum, we could spend the rest of the day exploring Golden Gate Park. The De Young was a very pleasant surprise; we found a number of works that we very much enjoyed. In the evening we took a bus the Cliff House, a restaurant that looks out over the water. It was quite crowded, but we enjoyed our meal. The restaurant is at scenic Point Lobos. We then took a bus back to the hotel. Fortunately, we were the first stop for the bus, which goes the entire length of the city. The bus was delayed so it so got very crowded. The bus driver had to tell people to stop boarding the bus but there was another bus that was 1 minute behind him that was empty. Unfortunately, few people believed him and opted to get on the overcrowded bus rather than wait one minute for the nearly empty bus.

Sunday

We decided to spend must of Sunday down around Pier 39. Sally suggested that we take a cruise to Alcatraz. There was a long line for people who had reserved tickets to Alcatraz and a short line for people who hadn't made reservations. We soon discovered that the reason for this was that trips to Alcatraz were booked up until Tuesday. Sally and I decided to take a cruise around the bay instead. We did get to see Alcatraz from the outside.

After the cruise Sally and I went Ghirardelli Square and bought chocolate and ate lunch. We walked past the Cannery, but remembered it as not being terribly interesting, so we didn't go in. Sally wanted to go into some of the jewelry stores. Fortunately, nothing screamed 'Take Me Home!' to her. We went back to Pier 39. Sally really is ten years old at heart, and she wanted to visit the Aquarium of the Bay. It's cool how they control traffic; there's a moving sidewalk that goes through it. Lots of sharks, which made Sally very happy. She may have been the only person who ever watched 'Jaws' and cheered for the shark.

We then walked about the Pier, and discovered that there was a comedy-juggling act going on. The two principals were very amusing; nothing they said to any of the kids invited to participate would be anything that 20 years of therapy wouldn't undo. They used knives, torches, and a six foot unicycle, and abused their audience in good fun.

After that, we sat at the Sea Lion Cafe and split a bottle of Chardonnay. Sally wanted to sit outside, but it became very chilly quickly. By the time we left the Pier, we were very tired. Our dinner was at a Thai noodle house not far from our hotel, both inexpensive and delicious.

Monday

Sally and I decided to visit Mission Doloras, one of the old missions established by Father Francisco Palou at the request of Father Junipero Serra. We took a street car and a bus to the mission. The street car was interesting; it was old and mostly wood. It was brought over from Milan, Italy. After seeing the mission, I looked at the map and noticed that Haight Ashbury wasn't very far away.We took a bus to Haight Street.There was a good bookstore there where Sally made some purchases, and numerous T shirt shops that indicated that the spirit of the 60s hadn't quite died in the place. We ate lunch at a small restaurant called the Pork Store, and yes, it had pink pigs all over the menus and walls. We then decided that we still had enough time before our flight to take a cable car ride, so we went to Union Square, where it is easier to get on the Cable Car than starting at Powell and Mission. We took two Cable Cars to Grace Cathedral and spent some time looking at the cathedral. Grace Cathedral, in Sally's opinion, was one of the prettiest Protestant churches she'd seen. By then, it was time to start heading for home. We'd checked out of our hotel, but they held our luggage so that we could spend much of the day touring. We hopped on the BART and agreed that it had been a most awesome anniversary.