Our Great Fulltime RV Escape: Tour of San Francisco and Dinner with Teela

Yesterday, we puttered around taking care of some laundry and other chores and then met-up with Greg and Suzanne for dinner at Princess Garden Mongolian BBQ in Vallejo.

A couple weeks ago, we made reservations for a 5 Hour Premium City Tour of San Francisco. Although I visited the City numerous times while stationed at Travis AFB in the 1980s, I wanted someone else to do the driving so I could relax and enjoy myself. We decided to sign up for the 9AM tour, so we would still have some of the day left afterwards. BUT, this meant we had to be in the City by 8:30AM. I asked Suzanne how much time we should allow to drive into the city and she suggested we ride the BART instead. As she wisely pointed out, the train schedule is reliable whereas the horrendous Bay area traffic is very unpredictable.

So we left Travis AFB at 6AM this morning and drove over to the North Concord BART station. We easily figured out the parking and ticketing system and got on the 7:15AM train into the City. North Concord is the second station from the beginning of that particular train route and so there was still plenty of seating. It was a comfortable 45-minute train ride... I even nodded off a couple times!

We arrived at the Embarcadero station with an hour to spare before we had to meet the tour guide for the City tour. We spent that time browsing around the Ferry Building's Farmers Market, which offers an awesome array of artisan breads and cheeses, fresh produce, grass-fed beef, wine booths, fine dining restaurants, cafes, etc. Wow, exploring this Farmers Market is an experience in and of itself!

In Front the Golden Gate Bridge

The City tour was fantastic! The driver did a great job getting us around the busy city, and the tour guide was very good - one of the best I've encountered. This particular tour is interactive. That is, you get off the shuttle several times and walk around, rather than just sitting on the bus and looking at things through the window.

We visited Chinatown and the Fortune Cookie factory (guided walk), Grace Cathedral (15 minutes to explore), Alamo Square Park (10 minute stop to view the Seven Sisters Victorian homes), Lombard Street (guided walk), Palace of Fine Arts (15 minutes to explore), Cable Car Barn Museum (15 minutes to explore), Golden Gate Bridge (drove over), and the Golden Gate Park (10 minutes to explore). We ended the day in Sausalito with an hour for lunch and exploring before taking the ferry from Sausalito back to the City. It was awesome! See below for a few photos.

Once back in the City, we took the BART to North Concord to get our car and drive back to Travis AFB. By this time it was around 5PM. We had about an hour and a half to walk the dogs and catch our breath before going back out to Vallejo meet our friend Teela for dinner. Turned out that the Indian restaurant we chose for dinner was nothing more than a sketchy-looking take-out place and so we ended up at a very casual Mexican place. It really did not matter as we just wanted to spend some time with Teela and catch-up.

By the time we got back to Travis AFB around 11PM, we were pretty worn out. It's been a BIG day!