We managed to survive San Diego, drive through LA, without getting shot at :) and knew enough to stay outside of San Francisco in "Los Gatos" and make day trips throughout the area instead. Unfortunately for us, due to our schedule, our visit to SF fell on Sunday of the Fourth of July weekend: one of the busiest weekends of the year. Through it all Lady Luck still smiled on us. When we arrived at the Golden Gate Bridge south side visitors' center there were so many people that I almost lost Jackie in the parking lot after she dropped me off because there was no a place to stop and the lot/lots were on two levels and separated by an overpass. Somehow out of maybe several hundred people and fewer than 100 parking spots we managed to fight off the competition and secure a spot in the 1st hour!!!!!! Now that we had a parking space for the day we began our exploration by hitting the porter potty; because it was so cold and windy nature called. There were so many tour buses at the visitors center that I remarked to Jackie why not do the "touristy" thing, which we don't do often. It turned out that there was a tour bus dropping people off right in front of us and I asked if it was available and what was the cost: FREE the driver said because he didn't have the mechanism to take money, yippee. The tour took us over the bridge to Sausalito where the houseboat community is. It was sunny and warm on the "other" side so we decided to stay for lunch and ice cream before catching the return bus to the south side again.
Mood changes: it is amazing how quickly external factors can change my mood. Going from 80 to 60 cold, moist, over cast and windy weather was definitely a bummer. Having said that, much to Jackie's chagrin, I still wanted to experience more of the bridge thereby dragging my family back over it on foot. Needless to say 5 minutes later Jackie wanted to turn back and Alexander was in a terrible funk. Mommy had a talk with him and he managed to scrape up a smile which I will show later on. Please keep in mind that Molly, the dog, is being subjected to all of the above as well ;-).
We were cold and tired and decided to head on "home" for the rest of the afternoon. We knew it was warm and sunny in Los Gatos and Alexander wanted to swim in the pool. We decided to drive through SF on our way North on Tuesday to experience a cable car ride and go to the Cable Car Museum.
Life in Los Gatos: Jackie had booked this motel several months earlier to avoid a chance encounter on short notice. We were not disappointed. True it was a motel, just a room, but we had a patio and 10 ' away a lovely grassy lawn where we threw around the football til dark. The rate included a pretty healthy buffet breakfast, which we appreciated, as we were making due with take out and snacks at night to save a few $$ when the day's experiences were over the budget. Also this spot was centrally located which allowed for short day trips. SF, Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay.
On Monday, the 4th I took Alexander into Santa Cruz (coastal) for a steam train ride through a redwood forest. It was a wonderful ride which Alexander enjoyed. Jackie "rested". Due to the dryness of the land there were only a few fireworks' displays, mostly on the Coast. There was no noise in Los Gatos.
We wanted to book another night to explore the area some more but there was nothing available, so we headed to SF for another dose of pain on Tuesday morning. We were pulling the trailer this time around as we were leaving the area for the Northern Coast. The car "cried out" for help going up those hills. Jackie was driving, per usual, and was getting quite nervous. The plan was to park the trailer somewhere and then walk to take the cable car. No garage would allow the trailer even though we were willing to pay for the extra space, so we put it at a meter on the street, took the car a bit further away to find another meter space so we could walk on. There is only 2 hours max parking so we were under a time constraint. We made it to the museum, which was interesting and free but didn't have time for the cable car. Oh well, wish we could say "maybe next time"...........NOT.
We were due in Redwood Valley to stay with friends for Friday thru Sunday, but we encountered glitches on the way...............
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