Don’t y’all just hate it when you go to visit at someone’s house and they pull out the Dreaded Vacation Pictures? No they didn’t dread the vacation; YOU dread having to sit there with an artificial grin plastered on your face while they show you pictures that bore… you… to… tears.

Well, the good thing about blogging is that you don’t have to sit there and smile. I’ll never know. So, I’m going to show you my vacation pictures that we took in The Embarcadero District of San Francisco. I was telling y’all about that trip to San Francisco yesterday. You grab a glass of eggnog, if you’d like to fortify yourself and scroll through at your leisure.

After the 1989 earthquake the Embarcadero Freeway was damaged and then torn down. The Embarcadero blossomed and is now a delightful place to visit. It’s considered a “safe” area (though you are going to find street people anywhere in San Francisco), and it’s quiet most days. But, sometimes it is bustling with activity because it has Fisherman’s Wharf, The Ferry Building (with lots of shopping), a very interesting set of five buildings connected by walkways and bridges houses some marvelous upscale stores, a movie theater (for “art” movies, where you can find that foreign film you didn’t know you wanted to see), restaurants, and lots of parks. Go the other direction on the streets and you will find night life galore and more shopping! Did I think I had died on gone to Heaven? You bet I did.

We saw the holiday “decoration” below in a dry cleaning store and had to have a picture. At the same time, Eric and I both snuckled,

“It’s a Major Award!”
[note: “Snuckle” is a legitimate word, because it’s on the internet, although I just made it up for you. Give the Google spiders enough time, then Google the word. It should bring you right here. “Snuckle” is a verb that means “a cross between a snicker and a chuckle.” It can also mean “a cross between a snort and a chuckle.” Or, it can mean “a snarky chuckle.” It’s just a very versatile word, and when you see it in Merriam Webster’s Dictionary twenty years from now, please remember that you saw it first here at my house.]
{MAJOR UPDATE! I should have looked up snuckle before I thought I invented the word!! It does NOT mean what Google tells you!! It means what I said!!!}

An ice skating rink surrounded by palm trees?? It was just incongruous enough to catch our attention.

Santa Claus came to town in a BIG way! Santa was everywhere! Some of those Santas are awfully skinny! They’d have to stand up twice to cast a shadow. It was a “convention” of sorts. According to the Santacon website, “It all started back in 1994 when several dozen Cheap Suit Santas paid a visit to downtown San Francisco for a night of Kringle Kaos. Things have reached Critical Xmas and Santarchy is now a global phenomenon.” Evidently this happens in many cities across the United States. I think the main focus is…ummm…drinking and causing an uproar. They didn’t give me any gifts. But, then, I’ve probably been my share of naughty this year.

Seems like they had their, “Ho, Ho, Hos” about them. Did you see that the New York Times reported that a Santa was fired for saying, “Ho, Ho, Ho?” Supposedly that’s degrading to women! He’s supposed to say, “Ha, Ha, Ha” instead. “Gimme a break,” she snuckled.

I think some of these girls were degrading to themselves! But, I guess if I was young and skinny…and drunk…I’d dress like that, too.

When I win the lottery, I will be living here:

Eric likes the idea, too. Since he’s such a good dishwasher, I’ll be glad to have him along. He has other good features (but this is a G-rated blog).

My sweet spousal unit was trying to be artsy-fartsy with the camera while taking pictures of the mirrored buildings.

Sorry, this hamburger sign caught my attention. We didn’t try the hamburgers, though. They couldn’t have been as good as the sign.

Now, this statue is supposed to be Georgia O’Keefe, at least that’s what the sign says. If it is a likeness of her, she’s a lot uglier than I thought.

Then, there’s the Transamerica Pyramid. I spared you all the artsy-fartsy photos that Eric took from below. He was trying all kinds of angles. I told him to lie down on the sidewalk to get a better aim, but he said, “do you know what the street people do on that sidewalk?” Chicken. But, I saved you from having to see the shots. Say, “Thank you, Shelly.” Thank you.

This was the Church of Scientology, but we didn’t catch a glimpse of Tom Cruise or anybody. Just a bunch of tourists was all we saw.

Whoot! Down near the wharf this fellow sets up to play his “drums,” made from all kinds of found objects. Man, he can play, too!

I found a myspace video of him. You have to listen to him talk for a minute, but it’s worth it.
The Drummer in San Francisco

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We were delighted to find that there is an open air market with street vendors. Saturday seems to be the big day for the Farmer’s Market, but there are artists and craftsmen with booths on the sidewalks year round.

OK, I like bell peppers, so I took an artsy-fartsy photograph, too.

I don’t know my “root vegetables,” and I was embarrassed to ask. Are these turnips? Rutabagas?

This poor dog was hamming it up for us, until we pulled out the camera. Then, he refused to look at us.

Of course, that’s the Bay Bridge.

I think this is Treasure Island. Eric kinda pointed in the direction that I was aiming the camera and said that’s where it was. If it isn’t, well excuse me. I’m just a tourist from Texas. [The man just said that it’s Yerba Buena…whatever that is. I like Treasure Island better, don’t you? So, I’ll just re-name it.]

Then, this was outside the funky little theater where we went to see Oh! Lady! Lady! It was a fun little musical and had some tremendous acting. The theater itself isn’t very glamorous, but it was worth visiting again. Since I ordered the tickets on-line, I’m already getting junk e-mails from them inviting me to other productions. It’ll be awhile.

I tried to make it as painless as possible for y’all. You can show me your vacation pictures and I promise I’ll drink a lot of eggnog and grin.

Technorati Tags: Dreaded Vacation Pictures, Embarcadero District, San Francisco., Santa Claus

Have y’all ever been to San Francisco? I believe I’ve told you that it’s just about my favorite place to visit. In fact, I want to live there. I will, just as soon as my Google ads start to pay off for me (or when I win the lottery—which will probably happen sooner!).

We just got back from a trip to The City (don’t call it “Frisco,” or you will sound like a tourist). If you are like me, traveling to a strange city gets me apprehensive. San Francisco is about as strange as it gets, and that’s why I love it! Yet, I get all discombobulated trying to figure out what to do and how to get around. I thought I’d tell you what we have discovered, just in case you decide you want to go there. It’s actually extremely easy, because there is such good public transportation.

We booked our flight and hotel through Travelocity for this weekend trip. I was pretty well pleased with what we got for our money. Even though you can find everything you want to know about San Francisco on-line, I suggest browsing a bookstore to find a good travel book about The City. It’s handy to have as you wander the streets.

We’ve learned to plan on visiting many more sites than we could possibly visit, so that we have plenty of choices depending on our mood and the capricious weather. We booked reservations for a play ahead of time, and we didn’t get our first choice—or our second choice—because our trip was planned at the last minute. I suggest that if you want to see a play while you are there that you go on-line and call ahead. You definitely want to see a play while you are there. Trust me.

Pack lightly! Remember that you will be dragging that luggage with you. We didn’t remember that advice this time. Mr. Tucker kept saying, “I might need this shirt.” Or, “Add those pants.” And, “I might need those shoes.” I kept telling him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen. We took more than 90 pounds of luggage for a two day trip! Before we came home, I packed everything we hadn’t worn in one suitcase and everything we had used in the other. I’ll let you guess which suitcase was lighter (hint: I got to say, “I told you so!”). San Francisco is a shopper’s paradise. If you need an item of clothing that you didn’t carry, you can buy it! You were going to do so anyway.

When you arrive at SFO, you still have to get into town, and it’s a long way. You could take a taxi (which would be pretty darned expensive). You can rent a car, because they have some really sweet deals. One trip, we rented a decent car for $25 per day. The problem was that parking cost more than that per day! Driving in San Francisco can be a nerve-wracking experience, too. If you decide that you need wheels so that you can travel outside of The City, you can always come back to the airport and rent a car for a day (or rent a car in town and pay a bit higher fee).

The best bet is to take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) into town, a ride of about 30 minutes. We don’t have anything like that here in Denton, Texas, so navigating it at first made me very nervous. There was no reason for me to be concerned. You can find out more about train schedules and such at http://www.transit.511.org. From the airport (from domestic terminals) take the free AirTrain to the “Garage G/BART Station.” There are machines at the station from which you can buy the passes to ride BART into town. To get into San Francisco will cost about $5.00 per person (you can add money to the card later if you need to do so). We each got a $10 pass, so that we had round trip tickets. Do figure out ahead of time at which station you need to disembark. Then, just feed that pass into the machine at the gate, grab the ticket when it spits it back and hop aboard. You can see from our faces that it wasn’t a horrible experience.

Two things to remember about those BART stations:

1. Don’t take the elevators in the downtown stations! Some of the street people seem to think those are urinals.
2. Ignore that fellow standing by the machine where you get your passes who is trying to act very helpful by telling you how to get passes and offering to make change. He doesn’t work for the transit system, he’s a panhandler looking for a tip.

This time around in San Francisco we did a lot of walking. I’m getting too old for that! Next time, we plan to buy weekly passes for the Muni, so that we can get around town on the buses. I’ve never gotten to ride a cable car, but it costs about $5.00. I’ll probably do that one trip, but I’d rather use that money to buy a large mocha!

We explored an area that was new for us: The Embarcadero District. San Francisco has lots of different districts (including Union Square, Russian Hill, The Castro, Telegraph Hill, SoMa, the Mission District, North Beach, Chinatown, The Tenderloin and more). Each has its own distinct “flavor,” and I love them all. But, The Embarcadero won my heart this time around. I’ll tell you more about “why” later in the week.

Technorati Tags: San Francisco, travel, BART, Embarcadero

I can laugh about it now. But, when we walked into our room at the Mendocino Hotel, I was not amused! This was the extent of my “bathroom.”

The toilets and showers were down the hall!

People, people, people!

Do I look like the kind of person who would be OK with sharing bathrooms? If so, look harder! We did enough camping when I was a child that I prefer at least a four star hotel these days. After those vacations having to shower in skanky old KOA bathrooms, I won’t shower in a “public” bathroom without flip flops for my feet. I’m not exactly phobic about germs, but I don’t want someone else’s fungus. I also prefer to “do my business” in private, thank you.

“It is a minor glitch. The room is really quite charming, although tiny. No, no, it’s charming. The sink is pretty. It’s only a sink! At least you have that, Shelly. It is only for one night. A whole night? Can I “hold it” that long? Yes, you can, you’ve done it before.” This was the mantra I chanted while we stayed there. It wasn’t so bad. And, on the up side, I came home and discovered that I can make my closet into a bedroom that is as big as that hotel room!

I’m trying to see “only the good,” and I think I’m doing a fantastic job at it.

Look at the picture, and tell me the good that you see. It isn’t that hard to do. At least, it isn’t if we practice now and then. In fact, I credit this very exercise with helping me stay calm and in control when I saw I didn’t have a dadgum bathroom! OK, I didn’t stay totally calm, but it wasn’t a total rant.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that we had gotten to stay at The Hill House in Mendocino the night before. Its exterior was used as The Hill House of Cabot Cove in the television series called Murder, She Wrote. You can see that they kept one of the signs. That room was spacious AND had a bathroom!

I can tell that you don’t feel the least bit sorry for me.

If you’d like, you can visit some other sites that participate in this exercise at Soliloquy, Inside Mo’s Mind, Life in Westcliffe, Lives Less Ordinary, and Miscellaneous Matters. Try it. It’s good for you.

Technorati Tags: Mendocino Hotel, only the good, Hill House in Mendocino