San Francisco 2011 (63 images)
Click a picture to see a larger view.
It had been 8 years since we last saw Jennie's sister
Linda so the opportunity to meet up in San Francisco was not to be
missed. Linda, accompanied by her daughter Ashley, was visiting the
City by the Bay to attend the Scleroderma Foundation's national
conference. Sadly, since we last met, Linda has been diagnosed with
this rare autoimmune
disease.
In addition to exploring San Francisco neighborhoods with Linda &
Ashley we included some time to explore SF Brewers Guild member
breweries: Thirsty Bear, Magnolia, Social, and 21st-Amendment. While by
no means representative of the brewpub scene in the Bay Area as a
whole, it did serve to further our experience close to where America's
craft brewing revolution got its start - Sonoma's New Albion Brewery in
1976. This album includes photos from our neighborhood wanderings, our
brewpub visits, and our Redwoods & Wine tour to Muir Woods and
Sonoma. We got around using Muni Visitor Passports good for unlimited
rides on local buses, metro light rail, and the famous cable cars.
We arrived from Seattle on a red-eye flight while the Scleroderma
conference was still in session so we rode BART from SFO to downtown,
lucked out with an early hotel check-in, dumped our bags, then rode
Muni Metro out to SF Zoo. Thus began the first of several shivery days.
The zoo is located out by the Pacific beaches where it was being
hammered by a sustained 20 mph onshore breeze - the zoo animals were
the smart ones - most of them hid themselves indoors away from the
cold. In their absence Brittany provides our only 'animal' shot.
As it turned out the stiff breeze did not let up: not only did it drive
temps down 10 degrees below normal; it also drove persistent fog in
from the ocean blanketing the entire Bay Area throughout our stay.
Apart from brief sunshine at Fisherman's Wharf and during our time in
the Sonoma valley, it was grey, windy and cold the entire time. We
hoped this trip would provide an escape from the terrible weather we've
endured in Seattle so far this year but as it turned out we would have
been warmer had we stayed home. As the following graphs show, our
weather in San Francisco (KSFO) went from bad to worse. Even so, we had
a great time - San Francisco is that kind of a special place.
