Day 2: San Francisco to Carmel

7:30 Breakfast in the lobby turns out to be a group activity. There are only three tables so everyone has to sit together ... even Pip the cat has joined us and is sitting behind me on the window ledge. We don't have a lot of time though so after receiving directions from the owners we head off towards Fort Mason.

Fort Mason: The grass is all green because of the recent rain. It's a steep climb and an even steeper descend (ouch!), but we are rewarded with a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Golden Gate Bridge and the harbor.

We walk past the maratime museum and a small harbor and arrive at the cable car stop just in time. We get to stand on the back by the conducter, great picture opportunity.

Waiting to leave.

Inside of the cable car.

We get off at the stop for Lombard Street, the world's crookedest street. As we're waiting for cars to pass we notice another cable car passing us by with one of the passangers being filmed ... we think it's Phil from the Amazing Race, but it turns out to be Ryan Seacrest who's in town for the American Idol auditions.

Cars maneuvering the sharp curves take a long time to get down, but it's probably safer than if it were to go straight down!

Our next stop, Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill leads us down another steep incline, then up another. It is incredibly steep and we have to stop frequently to rest our legs. Luckily the tower itself has an elevator for most of the way, or we might have turned around right there ;-)

View of the Bay Bridge from Coit Tower. The 360 view of the city was amazing! You can see everything from the Golde Gate Bridge, to Alcatraz, to the business district and everything else in between.

Cityview with typical San Francisco buildings and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.

We decide to walk 'straight' to pier 39. It has become completely overcast by now, but at least it's not raining. The stinkies are out in full force! It's great to see them by daylight.

Cute carmel colored sea lion sleeping on his friends.

Sea lion love. :-)

While most of the sea lions are sleeping lazily, some are busy defending their raft. They bite and try to push each other off, all the while making lots of noise. They are so much fun to watch that I could've stayed there all day, but it started raining so we decided to walk back to the car.

Passing through Fisherman's Wharf in the rain.

Cute horse drawn carriage waiting to pick up customers.

It wouldn't be San Francisco if we didn't take a picture of some crabs ;-)

On our way back the rain makes a beautiful rainbow over the small harbor by the Maritime Museum. Luckily it stops raining soon thereafter, but the bridge is still hidden in the clouds, ruining our plans to take pictures of the bridge.

On our way back the bay is lined with sail boat, very cute!

Luckily, it's true what they say about San Francisco; the weather really does change in less than 10 minutes and before we know it the bridge emerges from the clouds.

Small beach on the way to Fort Point. Apparently, they are holding a local dog meet, because there are dogs everywhere! We're quite surprise to see a couple of kids playing in the water, but as it turns out it's not actually that cold.

Sandy on the rocks by the beach. :-)

Fort Point turns out to be closed, but we manage to take some nice pictures along the way:
See the clouds in the background?

Because we still want to see the Park and some other things on the way to Carmel we decide not to drive across the bridge. For now this is as close as we'll get.

The road takes us past the bridge to a small pull off, with a great view of the Bridge from the other side, as well as the bay turning into the ocean.

Our next stop, the Golden Gate Park, is actually nowhere near the Bridge itself (the Park by the Bridge is called the Presidio ... doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but anyway). Although the Park isn't very hard to find, we're having a difficult time trying to find the major sights. We wind up completely driving out of the Park and following the road to the ocean. The ocean isn't on our itinerary for San Francisco, but when we see how wild the waves our we pull into the parking lot and enjoy the smell of the ocean for a while. As it turns out this was a great idea; we can see the top of a windmill peeking out from above the trees.

The windmill was donated to the Park by Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands.

We spent some time looking for a plaque with some more information on why the windmill was donated to the park, but we unable to find more information. As it turns out, Wilhelmina had nothing to do with the windmill! It was built around the turn of the century to help supply water for the park in a cost effective way. To read more about the history of the windmill go to: Dutch Windmill.

We get back in the car and drive a little ways to the Bison enclosure. At first it looks as if they are not there at all and we see several people walk away disappointedly, but then we spot them off to the side. We walk through a strong smelling eucalyptus forest and there they are;
They're behind double fences so it's hard to take a good picture. Nonetheless, this is my first time seeing a bison so it is very cool!

One without the fence in between, but unfortunately they're very far in the distance.

One of the many waterfalls.

We set off in search of the Japanese Tea Garden, but get hopelessly lost. At the same time the weather is changing and before long the entire sky is overcast. We stop at the concession stand by the lake, buy a hotdog and ask for directions; luckily, it's right on the other side of the island. Unfortunately the island turns out to be quite sizeable and it's a long walk to the other side.

Finally, we spot the bridge to get onto the island. It's very cute!

Nice flower. We've already walked more than halfway around the island and still no Tea Garden. It's drizzling a bit and we contemplate turning back, but decide to just keep going until we find it.

Finally, we run into it. "But this looks nothing like the book," I say. Admittedly, the weather isn't helping much, but I get the feeling we just spent a very long time walking around in the rain for no good reason ...

We stumble upon this huge multi-tiered waterfall and I decide to climb the steps in the hopes of finding the Japanese Tea Garden at the top, but no such luck. We keep walking for a while longer in hopes of finding a second bridge, but decide to turn back in case there is no second bridge (as it turns out, if we'd just turned the corner we would have found it).

By the time we get back to the car we're both worn out. One quick look at the guidebook tells us that what we just saw was the Chinese Pavilion, not the Japanese Tea Garden. :-( It's getting late and we still don't know how to get there, but we decide to give it one more try.

After some more driving in circles, we manage to get directions from the guy selling pretzels and this time we have no problems getting there ... parking, however, proves to be very difficult and in the end we settle on a parking spot quite a distance from the garden.

Gnarled trees right next to our parking spot.

The Japanese Tea Garden, so called because there is a small (busy) place in the garden where you can enjoy the scenery as you drink tea, is very beautiful! Many little bridges, waterfalls, special plants and the highlight; two Japanese pagoda's.

Me in front of the pagoda's.

>Without me.

Scaling the bridge, notice how narrow the steps are.

One of the pagoda's seen from the other side.

It is already 4 p.m. and we still want to see Natural Bridges SP (which we ended up not being able to see) and Pidgeon Point lighthouse so we leave the garden and somehow manage to get on Rt 101 right away. I pull out the guidebook and realize that the directions for Natural Bridges are not compatible with the directions to Carmel that we got from Mapquest. Luckily, we look at the map and notice a thin scribbly line leading straight to the ocean.

We get off the highway and we are amazed by how beautiful the road is. We're surrounded by trees on both sides and surrounded by mountains. Admittedly it is a bit more curvy than the highway, but at least it's taking us where we want to go and the scenery is amazing. Then a little bit curvy turns into hairpin twists every which direction, with no sight of the road ahead and suddenly it doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore.

The road takes us deep into the mountain, becoming increasingly curvy as we go along. To make matters worse the sun sets and we are left in complete darkness. Amazingly we make it to the ocean.

Pigeon Point lighthouse. It is actually a working lighthouse as you can tell.

At this point we've been driving for quite a while and we both need to use the restroom so we decide to grab a bite to eat in Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, today happens to be one of those days where nothing goes right and we end up passing right through main straight, then turning around only to make a huge detour through suburban Santa Cruz and finally settling on Mac Donald's because it's the first thing we can find.

With the help of the people from Mac Donalds we get back on the road. The Carmel Resort Inn is easy to find and we love our little cottage. Never have I seen a framed calendar page used as a decoration, but it works! Best of all, the room has a fireplace, but we can't figure out how to work it. It is actually controlled by the a/c unit or something like that and when I wake up during the night it's on. :-)

Pedometer total for the day: 18,988 steps!