27 Monday
I slept like a log all night and woke refreshed without any significant jetlag effects, though Sally was feeling the effects of disrupted sleep patterns. Today was Memorial Day in the USA - and a holiday - so Russell and Novey suggested they would show us some of the standard San Francisco tourist sights. After a late breakfast, we all set off in the morning in Novey's Toyota to see the Golden Gate bridge, the cable cars and then a visit to Fisherman Wharf.
  Standard tourist fare.   We started off on freeway 101, a 4/8 lane motorway, and then turned west onto freeway 92 and then north on 380 and then 280 to the Golden Gate bridge lookout point at the north end of the bridge. Very crowded with lots of tourists everywhere, but I guess that was to be expected for a long holiday weekend. They should keep away when kiwis are visiting. I took pictures with both the digital and film cameras.   It was quite chilly with a cold westerly breeze blowing in from the Pacific Ocean. Russell had wisely dressed in jeans, but I was wearing shorts so we were very glad of our wind breakers and Sally's big coat. Apparently there is usually a big temperature difference between Silicon Valley and San Francisco. We drove around and up the hill in the Golden Gate National Recreational Area on the north side of the bridge to several lookout points along the road to get additional views and differing perspectives on the bridge, the harbour, Alcatraz Island and other prominent points. From there it was off across the bridge again heading south, everybody hoping terrorists were keeping well away. We noticed helicopters patrolling the bridge making circuits above the bridge and then flying around the shoreline and making a wide circle to come back to the bridge again. (From TV news we were aware that there was a heightened alertness to attacks on the Memorial Day holiday, but fortunately nothing untoward happened). So we safely made it across again and almost immediately found the Exploritorium noting where it was in relation to the freeway for another time.    Drove to Lombard St where we found parking half way up the very steep cable car hill and from there we walked up to the start of the 'Wriggly Street' (Novey's very apt description, but it seems to be part of Lombard St), walked down the street (just so we can say we have walked down it) and then on into the Fishermans Wharf area all the while taking pictures of the things that happy tourists take pictures of. To actually drive down the wriggly street would have taken a very long time as there was a great queue of vehicles slowly making their way to the top of the street, slowly creeping down and around each bend to the bottom and then trying I guess to find parking somewhere in what was by now very crowded streets. I found it far better to walk around the streets as you see more and get a better feel of the atmosphere of the place. At Fisherman's Wharf we looked at the clothes shops, all selling clothes with San Francisco labelling and tourist icons blazened across them. (Tee shirts were high on the list). We had lunch (at about 3 o'clock) of bread bowl clam chowder which was actually very tasty.  On our way back down to Mountain View we took the most direct route, freeway 101 which has a 65 mph speed limit.

Golden Gate Bridge with the 'Oldies'

The "Wriggly St"

Its mandatory for all tourists to photograph the cable cars

View looking down Lombard St