October 11, 2010. San Francisco.

We started our day with breakfast in the hostel, then a long walk to look for kitchen cabinet hardware.... after walking a mile up to one store, we took the bus back down Mission Street, got off and walked another half mile to look at a different store. There we hit the jackpot, or almost.... they had great knobs in the window, just what I was looking for, but they are closed on Mondays. Ah well.

So we got on a streetcar and went down to Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf. It was a bit touristy but a lot of fun. We walked around and looked at all the kitschy stuff, even bought a couple of things! And by then it was lunchtime. We went to the Sea Lion Cafe and had a great lunch of local seafood and salads. The sea lions were in their usual spot, just below the balcony on which we were eating. They may look like they are lazing in the sun, but they were barking at each other and us--the level of noise was incredible!

We walked for a while, and stopped in a few more places. There was plenty of fresh seafood to buy on the sidewalk, but we were glad we had had a sitdown lunch.

It was fleet week so there were interesting ships in the harbor, several US Navy ships and this tall ship.

This photo of Ghirardelli Square was taken from the waterfront. Dianne and I ate dinner at Ghirardelli Square our first night in San Francisco last Thursday after biking across the bridge.

We got in line for the cable car, a San Francisco tradition. There were a couple hundred people in the line, but it moved along well. There were several cable cars lined up to take on passengers. The cars moved forward to a roundabout where they were moved around to change direction; this was done by "human power", an interesting operation to watch.

We bought one-way tickets on the cable car, planning to get off at the end of the line at Market Street and take the Mission Street bus back to the hostel. The streets on which the cable car ran were unbelievably steep. Dianne was white knuckled again, and asked if we could get off and walk! I guess you know what my answer was...

We went back to the hostel and took showers to get ready to meet our friends for dinner. My friend Barbara, who had been my roommate on the cross country bike trip in 2008, drove 35 miles into town to meet us, and Dianne's cousin Roslyn took the train in to town. We all met at the hostel and decided to have dinner on the rooftop restaurant right where we were. The weather was perfect for this, and we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner, 2 bottles of wine, and the company.

We went back downstairs to the restaurant at which Dianne and I had had dinner last night for dessert and coffee. We shared 3 different desserts among us, and all had a super time catching up on things. Here we are on the rooftop: Roz, Barbara, Dianne, and me.

After everyone left Dianne and I played Scrabble until midnight. Not the best thing to do before a long travel day, but we know that the games left on this trip are numbered.