San Francisco and Central Coast 2014

Prior to spending Thanksgiving in Los Angeles, we met Dani in San Francisco for a few days of sightseeing, and then drove down the coast.

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Our flight in gave us a spectacular view of the coast, the Golden Gate Bridge, the bay and the city.

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Things were running late, so it was a rush to make our dinner reservation at Kei on Nob Hill, which was good but not amazing.

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The next day we walked down from our hotel atop Nob Hill through Chinatown.

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We probably should have tried the sautéed goose intestines, as what we had wasn’t that great.

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A line up of cable cars. We planned to take this line back up to the top of Nob Hill later, but the cable broke, so we had a steep climb and ended up walking eight miles!

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Fisherman’s Wharf, with Alcatraz in the background.

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Trying an In-N-Out burger for the first time. Life not changed.

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The famous Buena Vista Cafe, semi-inventors of the Irish coffee.

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At the top of the hill is the cable car museum, and also the machinery that moves all the cables. We watched them splicing the broken one, a complicated process.

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Stopping at the venerable and tacky Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel for a Tiki drink. Dinner was at Jardinere, a cozy restaurant that was our favorite of the trip.

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The next day we headed north across the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Woods.

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Muir Woods.

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Big Redwood.

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Bear and friend.

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Linda checks her wingspan.

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Dinner at Gary Danko was excellent.

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The next day we headed down the coast and had time for a few Paso Robles winery visits.

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We stayed one night at the beautiful Dolphin Bay Resort in Pismo Beach, where we had the best room ever.

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I definitely want to go back to this place. It’s an easy drive from Santa Ynez wineries.

It was a great trip, much too short for all we wanted to do. The next day we made a brief stop in Solvang and then headed to Los Angeles.