San Francisco Weekend

Very quickly after arriving in SD I accompanied my Goddaughters (and my BF, Christina, their mother) to San Francisco for a Girl Scouts of America graduation, called a Bridging Over ceremony. When my boys graduated from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts, their Bridging Over ceremony was at the church and the boys walked over a small, man-made, wooden bridge about 5 feet across. The girls walked across the entire Golden Gate Bridge! Since I wasn't an official part of their GS Pack I didn't actually get to walk across the bridge with them. But we did see the sights and have some fun.

Lombard Street is always a must, of course, as is Alcatraz.

The weather was a bit overcast (shocker, right?) but the bridge itself is always the best.



We arrived Friday afternoon and road the cable cars - the girls loved it - and stopped by the top of Lombard St. We had dinner at Boudin's, the original bread maker, and stopped by Ghirradelli's (sp?) for a cone. The girls did their thing on Saturday and we wandered around again Saturday evening, leaving first thing Sunday morning.

While riding the boat back from Alcatraz, the wind was so strong I couldn't stand still enough to take decent photos - the camera was moving so much!

San Francisco is one of my favorite, all-time places! Being here with the girls was a good part of the visit...

I have to come back here again soon, with more time to relax!

Home

I made it home safely (thanks to all for your prayers and good wishes), with a short stop to see the kids in GA. I flew through Brussels, through DC, through Atlanta, and into Valdosta to visit Ryan, Beth, Sam and my Grandbaby to be, Haiden, then on to San Diego. I've been all over the world and this is still my favorite place in the world!

If you recall, my camera battery died en route to Table Mountain in Cape Town and so I bought a one-time use camera on the mountain for those photos. I finally got it developed and can show you the photos of and from Table Mountain!

First, we took the topless bus ride up to the cable car, which is suppose to be one of the longest/steepest if not the longest/steepest. The one in Chattanooga was pretty gnarly, but this one definitely won in that contest.

The top was awesome, of course, and there was even a lady explaining things about the mountain. I asked about the Cape location itself in relation to the oceans. She explained that the idea that the Cape is the apex of the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans is actually a myth; the Indian Ocean doesn't 'start' until further up the east side of Africa. So much for that idea... The views were incredible, as you can imagine.

I went up the mountain with some cool guys from the ship and we had a little lunch at the top. After getting back off of  the cable car, the topless bus continued its tour of the Cape area with a drive by some of the beaches there.

Gorgeous, to say the least. We only had 24 hours in Cape Town and then went back to sea, towards Sierra Leone. It was a beautiful day. I don't feel the need to visit Africa again, but if I did it would be the following trip: fly into Cape Town for a few days of beaches and mountain hiking (there are several paths up table mountain, if one is so inclined - no pun intended), an overnight trip on the Blue Train from Cape Town to Pretoria (Google that, because it looks amazing), and then a week or so on a real African Safari from Pretoria!

Back in Town and getting ready to head north again.

You already know how the rest of the trip went!

As soon as I got back to SD I was already packing for my weekend in San Francisco with the girls for the national Girl Scout Bridging Over Ceremony (graduation) where hundreds of girls walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. I was not part of the walking over the bridge because I'm not an actual GS leader, but I have some photos of the weekend (including Alcatraz) and someone else's photos of the girls walking. I will have those soon. And even though I'm back home for awhile, I will still have blogs of cool things and sights of So Cal for you all!