..........passing through some wierd places!!!

Okay, we all know that San Francisco is a wierd place; but, it still never ceases to amaze me how wierd it is in person! Well, lets go back a couple of days prior to San Francisco. We left Oregon and headed for California two days ago. We traveled down the Oregon coast for a while before making our way west to US Hwy 101 South. I really don't know when I've seen a more beautiful coastline than that of Oregon. After leaving Oregon, we entered into northern California. There, we saw more great coastline and the redwoods. There really are more of the redwoods left in the wild than many would have you believe. In fact, the redwoods are harvested quite regularly and in high volume. They [the redwoods] are everywhere, clear down almost into LA. The really big ones are kept safe. Many of the trees we saw were over 300' tall, and over 1,000 years old! We spent our first night in California at Eureka. This was a nice little town. We stayed at a Best Western motel that offered limosene service to and from dinner. That was fun. We ate seafood that night. Lisa had some wild King Salmon. Now, you know how I feel about fish that tastes like fish - that was the best thing I believe I've ever eaten!!! It didn't taste anything at all like fish, and the texture/color was fantastic. After leaving Eureka, we headed south to San Francisco. We traveled into town on Hwy 101 which took us right over the Golden Gate Bridge - that was exciting. I didn't get a picture of the bridge - fog! After checking into the hotel, we went to the cable car stop and went to Fisherman's Warf. It being the 4th of July, over 100,000 people of very questionable gender taste, were at the warf area for concerts, food, "fellowship", celebration, and the fireworks. We saw many interesting people there. One very well dressed guy stopped me and asked; "Are you an American?" "Yes"; I replied. "Do you vote"; he asked. I told him that I did. He then gave me a Ron Paul pamphlet and asked me to "help us save America, and vote for this man!" He got the blank stare. Following that incident, I witnessed a man who was about 60ish (long, gray hair), wearing jeans, sandals, and a tye-dye shirt; who was going through the crowd blowing bubbles with his jar of bubble soap and a ring. He was obviously very happy, and not concerned about anything - I would say his substance intake had something to do with that. We listened to a pretty good band playing some great '80's music at the waterfront - no kidding, good '80's music! After listening and watching the crowd, we felt it in our best interest to go back to the room for the evening. After leaving SF this morning, we traveled to Monterey, Pebble Beach, and Carmel. These were your basic tourist trap type of areas - Blowing Rock on steroids. We didn't even get out of the car at either place. We traveled down the coast of California on California Hwy 1 - the Pacific Coast Highway. If I live to be 146 years old, I will never travel that road again! Few guardrails, lots of cliffs, and fog. In fact, it was so foggy, we couldn't see the ocean most of the time. And the temperature - it was between 54-65 degrees the whole way. What was really weierd concerning temps - we were 40 miles north of San Francisco yesterday in the wine country, where it was 104 degrees. When we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge at 3:00 PM, it was 63 degrees! Okay, enough going on - here's some pictures..................

This guy was playing trumpet (using his left hand on the valves) at the cable car stop. He is really a very good musician. His tone and articulation are great! I don't know if you can make it out; but, that black blob in the back of the picture is his pet rabbit. He keeps the rabbit on a leash! Only in San Francisco!!!

Here's an adult elk on the side of the road.

.....some southern Oregon coastline.

.....more Oregon coastline.

I missed going to the restroom earlier in the day - the old "I can make it" when we went by the last rest stop. This old Victorian house had the best looking (and smelling) Port-O-John that I've ever experienced. I used the restroom, and before I knew what had hit me, I had us on a free guided tour of the place. This is the Hughes House. It was built in 1898 by some Irish imigrants (legal imigrants), who took up dairy farming on the Oregon coast and made a fortune. They originally came to Oregon territory in 1850 looking for gold. When that didn't pan out (hee, hee), they took up farming. The normal high temp there is only 67 degrees in the summer.

Here's some northern California coastline. Yes, it does look a lot like Oregon.

These are a few sea lions at Fisherman's Warf in San Francisco.

No joke, this is a typical house in the Pebble Beach Golf Club areas.

I thought this was an appropriate picture for the Fourth of July. This flag was flying at the end of a jetty in Oregon.

...........giant redwoods in California.

........another redwood picture. I saw so many redwoods, that I've had my "fix" for life!

The United Methodist Church in Chinatown, San Francisco.

......Alcatraz - The Rock!!! I bet it drove the inmates crazy to look out and see San Francisco so close, but so far away. The water temp at an averave 50 degrees, made it almost impossible to swim off the rock.

How about the windchimes on sale in San Francisco. I've never seen so many Peace symbols.

........the Queen Mother of all chocolate places (San Francisco)

Here's a shot of Coyt Tower and the Trans America building (I think that is right) in SF.

This is Selina, our limo driver in Eureka, California.

Here's our Explorer coming through a giant redwood. The sign on this tree stated that it was over 320' tall, 21' wide at the base, and 2,400 years old - I'm okay with the measurements, but I don't know if I'm quite convinced of the age.

.........some pictures of California wine country.

I love to ride the cable cars! I always ride on the outside, hanging on. Do you know the difference in a cable car and a trolley? With a trolley, the cars are powered by electrical lines running above the cars. A cable car runs by having a cable that is moving continuously beneath the street in that center track. The driver pulls a lever that causes the car mechanism to grab onto the cable and propel the car. When you stop, he disengages the lever and acivates the breaking system on the car. These guys get very offended when you call these cars a trolley!!! Well, that's all folks! We will go into LA tomorrow, visit Malibu, Hollywood, and will spend the night in Anahiem. Tomorrow will be my daughter, Lauren's birthday!!!!!! The next day, we will go to Disneyland - we're on the west coast Mickey!