HAPPY NEW YEAR!

January 1, 2013

Happy New Year to all of you! We are so thankful to be alive today after spending the day in the big city -- San Francisco. I had to do the driving in Hilda, the Honda, as Buster won't drive her. Hilda has 194,000 miles on her and the reason she's gone so far is he has had NO access to her! We are staying out in Santa Rosa, about 55 miles north of Frisco but the drive was very beautiful this morning. After getting lost a number of times, even with a Garmin and my Smartphone navigator, we made it to Fisherman's Wharf. Oh, I might add -- a couple good nasty arguments along the route too! After walking around the Wharf area, taking a few pictures and spending a few bucks in the shops, we had lunch and then took a "Hop On Hop Off" bus tour around the City. We saw alot of sights and each bus we rode had good narrators. I recommend taking a bus tour.

Some of the stops along the route included Golden Gate Bridge Vista Point, Golden Gate Park, Haight-Ashbury, Alamo Square, Civic Center Plaza,Coit Tower,  Hilton Hotel (walking distance to huge shopping center), downtown area, Chinatown, Barbary Coast, North Beach and Alcatraz Landing and a few other stops. We did not have time to get off and sight-see at all these stops but did go to Haight-Ashbury. It was fun seeing the area again, we had not been back there since the '60's when it was in it's heighth. (If I hadn't married when we did, I might have joined them!) There's alot of fun shops and eateries. I loved going thru all those hippie shops and digging around. We didn't have much time to see alot and I did get pictures of a bunch of homeless that live there. Most all of them have a dog. I've decided after today that everyone either has a dog or a baby!!! There sure were alot of kooks hanging around -- brains fried, talking to themselves, sleeping all over the place, sitting around smoking ???, enjoying their pets, doing odd things, it was fun watching!!!!  .

The only catastrophe today was I was stopped at a stoplight and coasted into the back of the car in front of me (heading downhill, of course) ......just touched him but he jumped out and said, "You hit me, did you know that?" Buster said something (I don't even want to remember what he said) and the guy said, "The least you could do is say 'I'm sorry'!" We both said we were sorry, he jumped in the car and they drove off. WHEW!! Close call! And I was in big trouble with hubby. That's all I'm gonna say about that!!!

I am so glad we live in little Olympia, WA! It's hard to imagine how folks can live in those homes all crammed so close together. Streets are narrow and no where to park a car, if you own one. Where do these people buy groceries? We never saw one grocery store all day! (You know me and groceries.....)!! Driving in Seattle doesn't compare to Frisco.

Finished our tour and headed for Santa Rosa. Here we are in our little playhouse, had our dinner and enjoying the evening. Tomorrow a.m. we will load up and go to I-5 and travel south. Guess we've seen enough of San Francisco for this trip and decided the route south to LA is just too many days ahead of us. We're anxious to get to Yuma and get settled in for awhile!

I am accumulating pictures.....will figure out how to download one day soon, I hope!!