Holiday Inn Express San Francisco-Fisherman's Wharf

We arrived on Friday at 4pm and checked into the Holiday Inn Resort Fisherman's Wharf. It was a lovely Hotel in a great location. We strolled around Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39 and saw the sunset over Alcatraz. The local speciality is the famous chowder soup in a sour dough loaf which was delicious. The Wharf had loads of street artists and had a lovely vibe to it. The kids wanted a Volcano in Rain Forest Café so we were forced to eat chocolate brownies and cream!! Alcatraz tickets were ...

Up at 7.30am, finished off the last of the coffee and breakfast cereal and then cleaned up the insides of the RV. I did the final dump of the black and grey water and filled up the water tank. On the way out we stopped by the RV South lot to use the toilets but they require a keycode to get in the doors, no mention was made of keycodes when we checked in so we had to abandon that idea. We joined the Freeway and took the 680 north, then onto the 580 West. It was busy getting busier, when we jo...

Had a great walk with Roger and Charlie before the girls got up we went by the statue of blackie the horse and down to the bay. Then back for fruit and Oatmeal. Roger took me to the Holiday Inn for the registration and to get the bike. the bike was there and Sean the wrentch had it together in no time. However I exceeded the 35 lb limit in my bag so they (Michelle) told me that I needed to get another bag to split some of the weight up. So off I went me and my bike into San Francisco. Not kno...

The last early start of the year.  And the last junior ranger chance. Head out to Muir Woods, home to a grove of coastal redwoods.  Not as cold as some of our earlier treks, but still chilly down in the valley where the grove is. Amazing trees - in terms of their size and in terms of their age - some more than 300 ft tall and more than 1100 years old.  And the bark on some of them is more than 12 inches thick.  Standing among them makes you feel small - in terms of stature and also in terms o...

San Francisco turned on the charm today with another brilliantly sunny day, about 14 degrees celcius. What is not to like. But what to do? Today was also the only day we had nothing specific planned. I guess it kind of showed a bit. After rubbing our eyes a bit late and just wandering out of the hotel, meant that it was brunch. We manage to find a local cafe about a block away that looked like the revellers were still standing from the night before - the wait staff were dressed to the nines, ...

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Day 207 Friday 28 July 2006 I leave the oppressive heat of Vegas today and catch the plane to San Francisco. The relief when I stepped off the plane was amazing as the temperature was much cooler than the high 40's the last week or so. It was more low 20's here. I got to the hostel only to find they had messed up with my booking. They had only put me in for 1 night and not the 2 that I had booked over the phone. They were full for the second night and the price was also higher than they had s...

We managed to sleep in this morning. We haven't said much about the hotels thus far mainly because they've just been rooms. Sleep and shower. Period the end. But last night in Jackson we stayed at the Best Western, and I just need to take a moment to sing their praises. The room was amazing! The king sized bed was a bit hard, but the fire place and nice bathroom made up for it. Plus, had we been there longer, there was a microwave in the room as well as a few other amenities- like an iron and...

Since today was kinda long I'll split it up into a few section. First of all the really bad bit .... we were settled into our room at the Holiday Inn and on deciding to sleep for the night climbed into bed ... that's when Jade noticed the friends we had sleeping with us ... bed bugs! We squashed a few .. then found more .. then I looked in the pillow cases - MORE! ... and another on the wall above the bed ... That's when I decided I couldn't sleep in the bed, I rang the front desk (it was alm...

Part 2 for today .. we hired a couple of bicycles from Fisherman's Wharf and headed off along the harbour front towards the Golden Gate Bridge ... lots of people out .. and almost as many dogs .. it looks like a sunny Sunday brings all the locals out to walk there dogs .. there were literally hundreds of them! Also a lot of tourists. We stopped a lot for photo's along the harbour front and with a beautiful clear day with the sun low in the sky we got some lovely pictures. We rode for about 3 ...