Fisherman's Wharf San Francisco

So good to see Nanny!

Most Ridiculous Street Show worth $1

 Nanny has come to town! After picking Nanny up at the airport, we drove into San Francisco to spend the day down by the fisherman's wharf.  It was a very busy day in the wharf...people, people everywhere. Also, by the time we parked and set out, the fog was coming in and the wind had picked up a bit making for a very chilly bayside experience.  Nonetheless, we had fun and saw many great sights. We walked past all the typical crab and seafood vendors along the main wharf area and saw several odd guys on display...one completely in gold and another in silver. They were not really captivating the way Mallory Square, Key West guys are. Instead they seemed odd. One even seemed bothered that people weren't offering him much spare change or attention! We were kind of amused by this. One character did get our attention and we stopped to watch him for awhile. His costume consisted of some tree/shrub branches bundled together and a can for tips. He hunched down beside a trash can, covering himself with the greenery and would scare random people walking by for tips. Funny to watch. Nobody seemed to notice the oddly placed shrubbery by the trash can in the middle of the sidewalk and almost without fail people jumped and screamed! Ridiculous.

Well, of course, by now we were hungry...so we stopped at the Boudin Bistro. It is above the Boudin Bakery where they bake that famous San Fran sourdough. If you eat at the Bistro, you get free admission to the bread museum and factory (normally a $3 charge!), so this was a win win deal. The girls, okay all of us, loved having a birdseye view of the bread bakery and watching the goings on of bread making. We saw bread go through the entire bakery process from flour to shaping and baking. Cool and it smelled amazing!

Cute bread!

After checking out the bread factory we wandered around Pier 39 and saw the sea lions piled up. They were very quiet during our visit. We looked at them for awhile, walked on and then amazingly found ourselves right outside of the Ghirardelli building! We had little choice but to go ahead in and order a few treats to share...since Nanny was there and all.

Chinatown

Finally, we headed back to the car and decided we should quick drive through Chinatown before going back to Los Gatos. It was so very busy and colorful. Very cool. Two particularly interesting sights: chickens and 'stuff' hanging up in the windows of the markets and the Floating Boat Sushi Restaurant. Here is how that works: Sushi boats, really, small boats, float around a center island. On each boat is a sushi roll. When your favorite type sails by, you grab that boat! Clever.

Looking up the Wharf area from Pier 39...notice the Ghirardelli sign, like a beacon, above the area.

Angel Island and Muir Woods

View from Angel Island

We took a day trip to Angel Island and Muir Woods. Here is what we found.... 

Angel Island is an island located in the San Francisco Bay. It can only be accessed by boat. So....we took a ferry from Tiburon, which is a small town on the north side of San Fran, across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a beautiful weather day and we could see the city, Alcatraz, the GG Bridge and hundreds of sail boats enjoying the breeze as we crossed the bay. We learned that Angel Island is often referred to as the 'Ellis Island of the West'. However, other than the fact that immigrants were housed there, the 2 places are not so similar. Angel island has some bad history as a place where new Asian arrivals were processed and held while the government determined if they would be allowed to enter the U.S..

 Ultimately, most were allowed to come in to our country, but it is sobering to see what they went through to start a life here. After visiting the immigration center, we hiked around the (very mountainous) island and took in the many beautiful vistas.  

 

Back to shore and a short drive away, is Muir Woods National Monument area. It is a forest of giant redwood trees.                                                    

They are awesome to see and we felt so small walking the trail around them. The picture on the left here is the view looking up into one of those giants! It was very cool.  Further up the coast of California is a forest of trees that is home to even larger trees...hard to imagine that, but there, you can drive a car through the base of the tree!
We read, on one of the posted information stations, that the seeds of these redwoods come from a pine cone about the size of your thumb. Inside the pine cone there are many tiny seeds. Amazing really.

We were like ants in the forest!

We spent about an hour walking the forest trail. The trail was about 2 miles long. Perfect length and good news, it was flat!

STRETCH...

We had room for Rick in there too but someone had to take to pic!

California=Good Eating!

Just 1 of MANY fantastic stands at the Los Gatos Farmer's Market!

Well, always on the lookout for neat new places to eat, we have not been disappointed here in California. One delight, there are a number of frozen yogurt establishments around town...for those of you unfamiliar, its a big trend these days. Self-serve frozen yogurt, usually 4-6 flavors to choose from, all low/non fat, with a huge toppings bar. Toppings range from healthy fruits and nuts or granola to, chocolate, caramel, cookies...etc.

Happy Yogurt, Downtown Los Gatos, but there is also Yogurtland, Pinkberri Yogurt and several others!

Customers get their own yogurt, then fill with whatever toppings can be imagined (and fit in the cup)....your concoction gets weighed and you pay something like 30 cent per ounce. Very fabulous/dangerous!

Another place worthy of special mention is the Santa Cruz Diner. We spotted this place the first time we ever went to Santa Cruz but didn't stop. (We dined on the wharf instead, also great stuff!) This time we made sure to stop at the diner on the way back to Los Gatos. It was way cool and 'dinerish' inside. It had the typical bar and booth set up and all sorta strange stuff on the walls.
Another cool thing was the framed pics of Guy Fieri on the wall. Apparently the place was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the food network.  They had a huge menu with so many great options...hard to choose! Ashley and Rachel finally settled on breakfast and were totally loving that they were allowed to order that at dinner time!

Final 2 words on food are: Farmer's Market! Los Gatos has a fantastic farmer's market downtown on the weekends. The street is closed and set up with tents.  Everyone seems to be there, yet it is not too crowded or picked over. It is the most spectacular selection of fruits, vegetables, flowers and homemade things you can imagine! There are califlower of all colors including purple, squash of all types(even way neat minis), squash blossoms, bags of salad greens with edible flowers, fresh crepes made right there, breads, pies, brie, fresh flowers, musicians...... We will not miss a weekend during our stay here I can say for sure!

Mixed salad bags with edible flowers..Yes, we bought some!

Robert K. Drum

Dear Friends,
We have some sad news to share. Yesterday, Rick lost his brother Robert. It was unexpected and quite a shock. Robert lived in Colorado. He loved the outdoors. I have provided the link below for the obituary that was printed in the Daily Press newspaper.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dailypress/obituary.aspx?n=robert-k-drum&pid=145605800&sms_ss=google

Sept. 18 Half Moon Bay

Random roadside farm

We set out today for Fitzgerald Marine Sanctuary. It is in Half Moon Bay, a cool coastal town a little south of San Francisco. We heard there were tidal pools there that you can walk out and explore during low tide! This is exactly the type of thing we love to do so we typed the destination into the GPS and off we went. We were surprised, as we have been so many times, that the journey was as cool as the destination! The drive took us down a small 2 lane road that wound around the mountainside. There were many pumpkin patch type farms along the way and quite a few flower farms. So pretty.

Also, best surprise, Half Moon Bay is full of organic produce farms! There are roadside farmer market type stops that sell produce grown right there, all organic, so inexpensive. We saw so many brussel sprout, artichoke, carrot, pumpkin fields...unbelievable. Many acres of incredible oceanview property is home to brussel sprouts! We shopped at 2 different stands and bought bsprouts, artichokes, tomatoes, corn, garlic, basil,  peas in the pod, potatoes, kiwi and peppers! Oh and of course, a small pumpkin. All for about $30...by the way, they do not take credit cards and this is not an ATM type area...so glad we were prepared!

We finally made it to the marine sanctuary. It was almost 2:00 and low tide was about a 1/2 hour away, so we headed on down the walk. Wooden stairs took you down to the beach area. There were signs around warning not to take anything away and to watch for harbor seals. Cool. Sure enough, just as we had heard, all along the shore, the tidal pools were exposed in the out going tide. It was just as you would picture. There were a few other folks there, less than I expected for such a neat place. Anyway, we got right out into it and within minutes found anemones, fish, starfish, snails and hermit crabs. We saw quite a few seals as well in the distance. We walked and wandered around there for about an hour. We met a couple of Hokies, from Richmond out there...Rick told them we were JMU folks and they nodded at that irony.

Since we had such a fun time yesterday in Santa Cruz, and we felt a little bad that Rick missed it, we decided to drive south down the coast to Santa Cruz. It was an amazing drive. Just really beautiful scenery with cliffs and beaches and coastline.

A great deal of fog was coming in for part of the drive and when we got to Santa Cruz the fog was very heavy at the point where the big wave surfers hang out. We watched them anyway....by the time we drove out onto the wharf, the fog cleared and it was sunny. So strange how that works.
Very cool day. We can now check off -walk a tidal pool , from the list.

Sept. 17 - Santa Cruz

Toes in the sand again!

The girls and I took off Friday afternoon to check out the beach at Santa Cruz. We were looking so forward to seeing the sand and ocean again! If there is anything I have learned on this trip it is that I am truly a coastal person. It feels very strange (uncomfortable) to be so far away from the coast and surrounded by land, mountains, rugged terrain, land, trees, mountains, land, mountains...repeat, and NO water.
Santa Cruz was a short 20 minute drive down the curviest stretch of highway you've ever seen. Whew.

Once there, we found that it has a cool boardwalk, carnival area and drive out pier that people call the wharf. The wharf is lined with restaurants, shops and sea lions. We walked the beach and boardwalk, looked at the sea lions on the dock, then had ice cream/root beer floats at Andy's at the end of the wharf.

Out in the water, there are great longboard surfing waves and we were really wishing we could get out there...problem is the water temperature! Full wetsuits required here. A short drive along the coast brings you to the point where the best surfers are taking on some really huge waves along a rocky coastal cliff.

Crazy. Fog tends to roll in and at times it was hard to see anything beyond the immediate wall of water coming over those guys. They were fun to watch and there was a big crowd hanging around the lookout point.

Yay!

I was feeling good having walked in the sand and seen the ocean... I sent Rick a text, he was still at the office.

Sept. 13....LOS GATOS, CA *new pic

The  Cuda Car!

We are here finally and still settling in. We have not yet had time to explore very much. Trying to unpack and take care of stuff (like that windshield crack that started back in Idaho). Rick is at the office during the day and we are catching up on school work. We are in a nice little house in a nice little neighborhood. We can see mountains from the front yard and back! Over the mountains out front, lies Santa Cruz. I think we are about 25 min. from there and 45, or so, from San Fran. We will get to checking all that out this weekend! Meanwhile, Rick is driving a Cuda car. Fun, funny!

Hot tub, t.v., popsicles!

The girls have been getting used to their new surroundings as well! They have found a new favorite way to catch up with the Cooking Channel.