Tour de California Day 4

Tour de California posts: Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 3 / Day 4 / Day 5 /Day 6

Today we headed back into the city for a little shopping and...more shopping. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in pretty thick fog which hung around until about lunchtime. As the other day, it was COLD.

I learned during our tram tour on Sunday that there was parking available under Union Square right near the shopping area, so we headed there. Here's what Union Square looks like from the Cheesecake Factory on the 8th floor of Macy's (where we ate lunch).


After a little shopping in the department stores, we headed a few blocks north to Chinatown. My daughter is very interested in Asian art and culture, and she really wanted to wander the shops. Here we are at the entrance to Chinatown.

The main shopping part of Chinatown runs for quite a few blocks down Grant Street, a narrow one way street lined with shops on both sides. Everything from tourist junk to high end clothing and objects d'art. HolyCoast Daughter bought a beautiful turquoise silk kimono in one of the stores.

The wife and daughter had a couple of observations about downtown San Francisco. Mrs. HolyCoast noted that the vast majority of the people walking around talking to themselves were not carrying cellphones, and my daughter suggested that if she was going to be a street person, she sure wouldn't do it in a city where you're freezing in July. Good observations both.
We wandered Chinatown for awhile and then decided to head back out of town before the big crowd hits later on for the fireworks show down at Fisherman's Wharf. On the way out of town my daughter suggested a trip down famous Lombard street. It sounded like fun and away we went, down the 8 turns in just one block. Here's a shot out the window of the car as we descended.

We liked Sausalito so much we decided to go back for the afternoon. Here we are in front of the fountain in the park in the center of town.

The south end of Sausalito has a spectacular view of the bay and San Francisco when the weather is clear, and it was clear as a bell today.

By 7pm the town was really getting crowded with folks coming to watch the fireworks across the bay, so we thought we'd get out of town before things got too crazy. We barely were able to get our car out of the parking lot because they had started double parking cars for all the people coming to see the show. I'm glad we got out of there when we did.

Tomorrow we leave Larkspur and head down for one night in Monterey, one of our favorite places. More tomorrow.