San Francisco on Jul 4-8

We enjoyed 5 excellent and busy days in San Francisco!

July 4 - see some sights; enjoy Independence Day festivities downtown including fireworks at Pier 39

July 5 - drive south on peninsula to Santa Cruz; dinner with Brad & Carole in Foster City

July 6 - visit the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom amusement park

July 7 - ride San Francisco cable cars; visit the cable car museum; walk through Chinatown and downtown; visit SF Museum of Modern Art

Wed Jul 8 - San Francisco harbour tour; visit California Academy of Science museum; visit Exploratorium museum

Here are the links to the photos for those days.


http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090704?authkey=Gv1sRgCKnR6ryfv56hWA

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090705?authkey=Gv1sRgCJGzxsjq89qTjwE

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090706?authkey=Gv1sRgCJu29OfR0fOxaw

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090707?authkey=Gv1sRgCIbU4pzF_q6sMg

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090708?authkey=Gv1sRgCJX00NmS-s-dqwE#

Heading to San Francisco - Jul 2 and 3

We travelled from Florence, OR to Arcata, CA on July 2. Arcata is near Eureka in northern California. On July 3 we reached San Francisco.

On the way we saw some really beautiful coastlines and forests. We saw the famous "drive thru" tree in Leggett, which Ann visited with her family as a youth.

The impression one gets of southern Oregon and northern California is that it's economy is quite depressed.


Here are links to some photos for the two days:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090702?authkey=Gv1sRgCKv00ZPQlPvEhQE#

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090703?authkey=Gv1sRgCKOqw_WSpaWkjQE#

Around Florence, OR, on Jun 30 and Jul 1

We arrived in Florence on Monday night. The weather was cool, after being pretty warm along I-5. It started to cool after turning west at Eugene.

On Tuesday we rested a bit and did some grocery shopping at the Fred Meyer (it's huge). Of course we had to check out the dunes blowing into the back of the Fred Meyer parking lot.

We drove south a bit to check out the dune riding opportunities, but didn't take any rides that day.

We tried to go the beach near the dunes, but it was so windy that the sand was stinging our faces, so we didn't make it down to the beach. We ate in Old Town Florence that night.

On Wednesday morning Mark, Callum and Lara went dune riding on ATV's at Sand Dunes Frontier along Route 101, about 4 miles south of Florence. Callum and I took out a 250cc 4-wheel ATV and Lara rode a 90cc 4-wheel ATV. We were out for 1 hour. It was a lot of fun. I didn't take a camera along, so only have photos of the ATV's parked in the lot. We each got stuck in the sand a few times, so Mark got some exercise lifting the ATV's out of the holes dug in the sand. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Not as windy as the previous day.

Ann walked through Florence that morning checking out the shops.

On Wednesday afternoon we all took a drive north of Florence along the coast as far as Waldport. Really nice scenery and viewpoints. We ate in Old Town Florence again that night.

Here are links to some photos.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090630?authkey=Gv1sRgCJPY2OTsvvSh3gE#

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090701?authkey=Gv1sRgCP7tzLjBlL60eg#