Although we camped in Santa Rosa all week (it was cheaper), we made several trips to San Francisco. I had been to San Francisco a few times before on business, but this was the first time I really got to see the city. Or even the Golden Gate Bridge for that matter:
We had some time to kill on Monday before trick-or-treating, so we stopped at Lucas Film:
There wasn’t really anything to do there, but they had a nice lobby with all kinds of Star Wars artifacts, and their campus was a nice park open to the public.
But enough Star Wars; we came for some candy. Here are my girls in their Halloween get-ups: Emily, left, is Sackboy from the Little Big Planet PS3 game, Natalie is a little devil (and dressed like one too!), and Carrie is a diva (and dressed like one too!):
We found a neighborhood that was…nice: (Seacliff)
Whole candy bars, folks. We got WHOLE CANDY BARS.
This walled compound is the abode of Robin Williams (or at least it was at one point, according to multiple internet sources). At the front gate they were handing out glow sticks. Boo.
Heading home after the candy bags were full:
Natalie and Emily reviewing their bounty back at the RV:
On Tuesday we went back to San Francisco. Amy and the girls hit some museums while I did my work in a downtown coffee shop (I felt quite cool):
Thursday was my birthday, so I took the afternoon off for some wine tasting at a nearby winery in Sonoma County:
Freddie here served us up some spectacular wines. We left with a bottle of our favorite.
We went down the road to another winery that actually gave tours — I wanted to see how they make this stuff. We learned how the sunlight, the hills, the soil depths, — all that stuff contributes to the different tasting grapes and wines.
Amy and me on the tour: (Amy looks lovely; I look like the Unibomber.)
Natalie was a bit nervous at first, but we all enjoyed a few wine grapes right off the vine:
A large vat of fermenting grapes. Wow it smelled good:
Not sure what this guy was doing, but that steam was putting more good smells in the air:
Inside the storage cave:
…and more wine tasting at the end!
Mid-week, our new neighbor Fran captured my girls’ attention with her cats that traveled with her. She joined us for dinner, taught my girls some new card games, and gave us some very useful local travel tips:
Ever since our trick-or-treating on Monday, we had been talking about the movie “E.T.”, since that took place in California during Halloween. My girls wanted to see it, so we rented it and had a movie night.
Now, those that know me know that I’m a bit of a home theater snob, and my movie room is one of the few amenities from traditional living that I actually miss. I had stowed an old projector from my office in the RV just in case I got a hankering for a big screen, so I dug it out and set it up:
An office projector and a bedsheet are hardly the makings of a good home theater, but it was still fun. Won’t be the last time I set this up. 😉
We made our third trip to San Francisco on Saturday to ride their notorious cable cars. I had no idea how those even worked: they actually grab on to cables that move underneath the streets! Here is the station that makes it all happen. Impressive:
We did a lot of walking. Here’s Chinatown:
I kept trying to capture the intense hills of this city. I would hate to take the RV through here:
Occupy San Francisco, hard at work:
And finally, a trip on a cable car:
We went back to Chinatown to find “Sam Wo,” a restaurant that our neighbor Fran recommended to us:
This was seriously the entrance:
…and our table was on the next floor above the kitchen/entrance. Excellent food, though.
Saying goodbye to our awesome neighbor Fran outside her sweet RV this morning:
We made it to San Luis Obispo where we’ll spend most of this week. Amy has a mini-marathon in Santa Barbara this weekend, so we’ll head that way on Thursday.
…unless we need to break camp earlier — we are desperately low on propane (i.e. furnace, hot water heater) and I’m not sure we can make it until Thursday without getting that replenished.