SAN FRANCISCO

We recently returned from a nice trip to SF. We hopped aboard a Southwest Airliner and enjoyed not-quite-full flights both ways. That enabled us to have an empty middle seat between us -- totally makes the flight bearable, and almost enjoyable!

We did the tourist thing. We REALLY did the tourist thing by getting snagged into a "Time Share Presentation." Haven't done that for about 20 years, so we figured we could sit around and listen for two hours and walk out with a $25 Best Buy Gift Certificate and two City Pass booklets that we were going to buy anyway that cost $59 each. The booklets were great and allowed us to ride all the public transportation including bus, streetcar, and cable car as many times as we liked during our 7-day stay. It was so nice not to have to find the correct change to ride the public trans -- we just flashed our pass and went right on.

The other freebies in the coupon book were California Academy of Sciences, Harbor Cruise to the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, Aquarium of the Bay, SF Museum of Modern Art, Legion of Honor Museum, and De Young Museum. We also went to the Cable Car Museum and a few other free attractions.

The weather was really nice -- in the 60's and only two days of rain. Otherwise sunshine and we didn't even have to wear our coats. Nice. We walked and walked and walked. It was great.

I have been working on putting some of my photos online. I posted a bunch on Snapfish so if you have an account there (or want to sign up for a free account) you can go to this link and see a slideshow: http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=274512371/a=26147913_26147913/t_=26147913 I have another slide show to send out via e-mail once I zip it to make the file size smaller.

We rented a condo that was nicely located about 3 blocks from public trans. There was also a market that is similar to a mini- Whole Foods just 1.5 blocks away, so we were able to get a few groceries.

In just 6 short days we will be heading to Steamboat to spend a week there visiting Greg and Heather and the TWINS. Greg has meetings (including "riding" a board?) so we will get to spend time with the rest of the family. We can't wait. They are growing SO FAST! Emmett is already crawling and Maggie won't be far behind.