Trip to Angel Island

This morning Travalon and I had a crabby brunch at Boudin's, the famous sourdough place: he had a crab omelet and I had crab benedict. Then we took a ferry over to Angel Island, a state park, and took a vigorous hike that was mostly uphill. The views of San Francisco Bay from the top of the island were incredible. When we came back down, a group of young guys said that for some treasure hunt they were doing, they had to dance with two strangers, so we did the Chicken Dance with them. On the way back, the ferry stopped in Sausalito, and we got to admire the huge houses on the hillsides overlooking the bay. Talk about big money! We saw all kinds of boats on the bay, like a sailboat with three masts and six huge ships, not sure if they were military or shipping vessels. We also saw wildlife: cormorants, sea lions, porpoises, pelicans, and lots and lots of gulls. At our hotel we saw some sort of heron that we had never seen before.

Once we got back from Angel Island, we attempted to take the subway because we could use our transit cards to ride it, but we couldn't figure out how to get in, so we snuck in... and ended up on the BART, which goes out to the suburbs. Oops! We quickly got off of that and got on the right subway, which took us to Mission Dolores, the oldest building in San Francisco and the actual mission founded by Father Junipero Serra. Then Travalon indulged my mass transit geekiness: we had already ridden the cable cars, the street cars, the bendy busses, and the subway, but we hadn't gone on the cute little orange street cars imported from Milan. There are only two of them, so we waited patiently until one passed by, then we took it to the end of the line... and ended up in Castro, the infamous gay district! We took another street car to the cable car line we hadn't ridden yet and then took that to the Tonga Room, an upscale tiki bar for which we were severely underdressed. We had potent adult drinks and then caught the cable car back to the ferry for our last view of the city lights of San Francisco. My readers know how I fall in love with every place I visit, but this place - wow! Named after my favorite saint, full of adorable mass transit and palm trees, blessed with mild winters, and very maritime - I mean, what's not to love? Other than the high cost of living here...

Famous Hat