bay cruise #2

i know that photos of the golden gate bridge probably all start to look alike after awhile, but if you look at the second one here you can see how the fog breaks once you're inland from the bridge.

and that last one's the closest thing i got to sunset photo the entire trip.

a long walk

the walk to the wave organ & the palace of fine arts.

sightseeing

san francisco!

i love san francisco. i could probably sit down by the bay all day long, not doing anything, and come back to the hotel feeling like i'd had the best day ever. but, my goal is to do things i've not done before while i'm here. that included doing the sunset tour on alcatraz... however that tour is sold out through thursday. so i won't be going to alcatraz this time. although i did shoot some photos of it on this evening's bay cruise. i know it was really foggy & i should have waited until tomorrow to do the cruise hoping for sunnier weather. but i love being on a boat, so i just went for it. another company offers a 2 hour sunset bay cruise, which i may look into doing tomorrow or monday.

i've changed my plans. instead of spending half of my vacation re-driving my way back down to san diego, i'm going to cut a few days off my schedule & fly home from oakland. so i'm here in sf until tuesday morning; i'll be landing in chicago on tuesday afternoon. i think i over estimated my desire to spend a lot of time driving, and i got tired of driving for driving's sake. so i turned the mustang in today (i don't need it in san francisco), and i'll catch a cab to the airport.

i also tossed in a photo of my room here at fisherman's wharf. just because i think it's super cute & it makes me feel fancy. :)

pescadero state park

just one of the beautiful pull-offs along highway one today. i enjoy these state parks that are just places to pull over on the side of the road & be at the coast. they make it accessible with some rough stairs, but not so accessible that it loses any of its natural feel. the state of california gets a gold star for that effort.

the second two photos are from point lobos - the greatest meeting of land & sea. that's what the books claim, at least. it *was* pretty impressive. i only went to one of the coves, and it was quite beautiful. i even got to see a few of the seals playing in the water.

and i tossed in the chipmunk since i talked about him in the last post but didn't give you the photo. :)

driving

today was absolutely gorgeous. this was the driving i came out here to do. highway one ran right along the coast today, and it was simply wonderful. the first couple photos are from julia pfeiffer burns state park. the rest are from a seal watching pullout just north of san simeon and the willow creek picnic ground (part of the los padres national forest). the very friendly chipmunk was at willow creek. there were a lot of the little buggers running about, trying to get food from the humans. silly animals. i know i should have more to say since today was fantastic... but the views were just something you need to see.

also, i just posted on the hearst castle. i've got this page set up to only show one post at a time, so if you haven't checked this in the past 20 minutes, you probably didn't see the hearst post yet. aren't you glad i left those handy-dandy links to previous posts on the right? :)

hearst castle

a big thank you to franchesca for recommending i visit the hearst castle. it was fantastic. i did the "experience tour", one of the five or so tours they offer. unfortunately you're never at a really good spot to get a full photo of the casa grande, the large picture above, and the third small photo are parts of hearst's residence at the ranch. the two towers in the main photo are bell towers. hearst's guests were invited to play the bells during their visit, but only between the hours of 10am & 10pm to avoid bothering the other guests. the third small photo shows the balcony off the bedroom hearst used for some time, before moving into one of the rooms behind one of the bell towers.

also seen here is a shot of the neptune pool, complete with a greek temple he bought & had reconstructed at the ranch. it's actually parts of several temples, with the figures in the pediment being big question marks as to age & origin. there's also a ceiling from the small guest house we walked through. our tour guide mentioned that hearst needed a ranch so large because he collected antique ceilings and wanted people to see them. indeed, the ceilings were quite fascinating throughout the complex. the last photo is of the indoor pool, tiled completely in glass tiles (some containing gold). absolutely amazing. it was beautiful. when we first started the tour, our guide told us that a year from now everything we see may be fuzzy in our minds except for the neptune pool & the indoor pool - those we would remember clearly. i think he may be right.