Day 18: Thursday, July 19, 2012

Finally time to leave our “luxurious” (insert sarcastic tone) hotel.  For breakfast, we went to Washington Square in San Francisco to get the Mama’s Café experience.  Multiple people had recommeneded it to us and every travel Web site we went to ranked it as a “must” in SF.  So we went…and waited outside in line for an hour.  The hostess said it’s like that everyday and usually an even longer wait, especially on the weekends.  The café is small but is family owned and looks super homey.  It reminds me of a smaller version of one of my favorite restaurants in Raleigh, Barry’s Café.  The wait was totally worth it (as you can see in the picture below).

San Francisco

Next we walked around the corner to check out Washington Square and a beautiful church right next door named St. Peter & Paul.  Interestingly enough, this is the church where Joe Dimaggio was married to his first wife, Dorothy Arnold, and also had wedding pictures taken here with his second wife, Marilyn Monroe.  The church also hosted his funeral in 1999.  Also, the church was featured in several movies – Clint Eastwood films “Dirty Harry” and “The Dead Pool” and also in parts of Sister Act 2.  I can definitely see why...it was incredibly ornate and gorgeous.

Then it was on to Pier 39 at Fisherman’s Wharf, the northeastern area of San Fran near the bay.  There were shops everywhere and restaurants and lots of great views of the water and even Alcatraz Island (we tried to take a ferry tour of Alcatraz but they were all booked out for over a week.  Who knew prison was so popular?).  Also, Pier 39 is home to the famous Bay Area sea lions!  There were only a few at the docks when we were arrived but they were hilarious.

We passed by the Giants Stadium on the way...Brian Wilson and Cy Young were no where to be found :(

View of Alcatraz Island from Pier 39

Sea Lions!

Last but not least for San Francisco, we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge!  It was breathtaking. 

The fog was rolling in right when we started crossing so we were scared that we wouldn’t get good photos but when we reached the other side we stopped off at a vista point where I got the picture below.  It’s my favorite picture so far from the trip because it is truly that gorgeous in real life and we got to see it in person, with our own eyes.  This pic was taken with my iPhone, no filter, no Instagram, no anything. The light and the fog must have hit just right. Just God’s creation and man’s creation combined to make one awesome photo and one great memory.

From there, we went on to Napa Valley for the evening and checked into the Doubletree – we had to stay in one at least once, just for those heavenly cookies.  We ate at a little Italian restaurant there and then just chilled for the rest of the night – so great!