If You're Going to San Francisco...

We made a rather impromptu trip down to San Francisco to spend last week with Scott's mom, who was down from Alaska and in town for a week-long conference.

We drove down on Monday, stopping in Salem, OR at Rock-N-Rogers Diner for breakfast, and met her at the Parc 55 Wyndham hotel in downtown San Francisco. I, unfortunately, cannot recommend this hotel to you, dear readers, as it was one of those hotels that tries desperately to pull of posh and falls just shy of its lofty goal, despite its claims of all the "thoughtful amenities" and "thoughtfully appointed rooms". There were clearly some things they forgot to think about. It came equipped with the requisite $5 bottle of oddly size, and thus irreplaceable, bottle of Aquafina, the restaurant and bar where I felt underdressed by not wearing the uniform black, the valet attendants who were convinced we were rather shiesty, and charged $15 per day for internet service.  The internet was a nightmare unto itself, however, and this proved to be quite problematic for one who makes her living on being connected to the internet. The ethernet cord was present but fit into the "Line In" plug; obviously to get the internet into my computer I required a "Line Out" plug.  We were incorrectly under the assumption that there would be a small refrigerator in the room; the lack of this "thoughtful amenity" put us in a bind as we had brought a JaCiva's cheesecake with us from Portland. Ever resourceful, Scott used the cooler we had used to safely transport it in (possibly the reason for the looks from the valets as this particular cooler was painted neon yellow). The gym proved to be questionable as the treadmill Scott was using sounded as though it would fall apart at any moment and insisted on calibrating every few minutes, requiring him to find a new machine mid-run. The house keeping team, though, was terrific.


It was good to see Mom and to be able to spend some time with her when she wasn't in conference and I wasn't working.  On Tuesday we met for lunch at Cafe Mason. The shrimp and crab melt was delicious: Bay shrimp & dungeness crab with monterey jack cheese served on croissant.  I spent the afternoon grading and holding my classes, while Scott traversed San Francisco alone, and finished up early enough to be able to enjoy dinner at Colibri Mexican Bistro. The guacamole was made at our table and was served with three varieties of salsa--red, green, and a sweet yellow--and housemade corn tortillas. The margaritas were excellent, although for those who like them frozen it is not an option here, and I thoroughly enjoyed my Margarita Tezon (Tezon Blanco, bright citrus fruits with hints of honey, vanilla and spice) and Scott enjoyed his Margartia Corzo (Corzo Blanco, flavors of tropical fruit and peppery spice harmoniously blended to create a delicate finish).  The Camarones Ceviche (Prawns in lime and orange juice, onion, garlic, cilantro, tomato, avocado, olive oil, with a tomato chipotle sauce) was absolutely wonderful and my only regret was that I was unable to finish it all. hould you decide to eat here while visiting San Francisco, I recommend making reservations.   Scott surprised us each with a small token from his outing; I am now the happy owner of a pair of Betsey Johnson checkerboard tights and Mom now has a lovely pair of crocheted wrist warmers from Sock Shop on Haight.  


Wednesday provided us with beautiful weather and we met up with a friend we knew from college in Colorado at the HoneyHoney cafe and crepery. It was such a treat to see her and her daughter, who just turned one.  I had frantically been knitting a toboggan hat for her with a self-striping terrifically bright 80s style rainbow yarn.  It was adorable on her although she preferred playing with it as opposed to wearing it on her head.  From HoneyHoney, we met up with Mom and headed out for a tour of San Francisco, courtesy of Scott. We drove to Haight-Ashbury, 


drove down Lombard Street and Hyde Street, which admittedly tested my mettle when I saw the dropoff.


We explored Golden Gate Park, stopping to watch lawn bowling where a player explained the logistics and some history of the game to us, strolling to Hippie Hill, which is "a small hill at the eastern end of Golden Gate Park where the hippies often gathered to smoke marijuana during the Summer of Love and people often gather today" (admittedly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Park), and wending our way to the Japanese Tea Gardens . There are pictures that we took of this that deserve their own blog posting.  The gardens were beautiful and I took a lot of pictures of budding flowers and green that Mom could take home with her to the frozen greys and whites of Alaska.  

We found lunch at Jenny's Burgers (with plenty of Forrest Gump imitations on the pronunciation of this place). This tiny little burger joint had a great toppings bar--shredded lettuce and lettuce leaf, spinach, tomatoes, pickles, pepperocinis, banana peppers, olives, beets, green pepper, onion, mayo, mustard, ketchup, barbeque sauce, and more.  Scott ordered the Hawaiian that came with grilled pineapple and teriyaki sauce. Mom and I ordered basic cheeseburgers and I proceeded to dress mine with barbeque, banana peppers, pickles, tomato, lettuce leaf, and onion. Flavored with hunger, these burgers were hard to beat that afternoon.  After this late lunch, Scott drove us over to the Presidio area to look at the fancy homes and look out over the Bay.  I realized just how much I love just driving around unfamiliar cities, turning down roads and not knowing where they will take you, and then trying to find our way back.

We had tickets that night to Yoshi's to see New Monsoon with Scott's mom. We were joined by one of her coworkers. It was an enjoyable night and I found myself particularly liking the song "Alaska" for its sad ballad, and quite appropriate title.