Sunday 11th May
So, with the weather looking really good and it being Mother's Day (and hence probably busy in most places), we'd decided to head south to a small place to eat - "Squat and Gobble" (and interesting name for a food place) - then head to Mount Davidson. Se set off, after I'd set off the Sat-Nav. However, the blasted thing didn't actually pick up any signals until I was moving in the wrong direction. It finally took me North and suggested I take a right immediately before the Golden Gate bridge entranceway. Needless to say, if there was an exit there - I missed it. So onto the bridge we drove.
All very well you might see - are you not supposed to do that when visiting SF?? Well, as we'd discovered when picking up the car, the Golden Gate bridge has a toll for Southbound drivers (on the return trip) and it's a cashless toll, meaning you have to pre-pay. So once across the bridge we couldn't just turn around or we'd run the risk of being fined for no toll duty. So instead we headed north a little further and stopped at a nearby vista point. I was not amused.
Still blaming the tech (!) we decided to stop off and take some photos as we were already there.
We noticed a lot of people driving on further, so we decided to follow and keep rising up the side of the headland.
Each time we got higher, there were fewer people about and better views!
Our final stop was at the edge of a mysterious place called 'Construction 129'.
C129 was an abandoned coastal gun emplacement, built during WW2 but never commissioned. You could walk around it via a long, concrete hardened bunker entrance.
The other side of the emplacement was looking out onto the Pacific Ocean.
We walked around there for a while before I sat back in the car and managed, using my phone, to get our toll on the bridge pre-paid. I'm just thankful that my phone works on data over here!
So back over we went.
This time we did manage to get to the Squat and Gobble. We ordered and Linda was presented with a meal for two!
Once dinner was done, we moved on to this Mount Davidson, less than a mile from the eating place. It's slightly higher than the more famous 'Twin Peaks' mountain, but nowhere near as busy. At the top the vista was of the north and east of the area around San Francisco.
There are some more photos in the slideshow at the bottom.
We chilled out in the hotel for a hour or so before going around the corner (literally) to a restaurant in a nearby hotel. The Mothers Day meant that the main places to eat along the wharf had long long lines. We called the Rainforest at 4pm and they had a 2 hour wait already. Knuckles (the restaurant we went to) was walk-in due to it being tucked away in one of the smaller hotels. Nice meal too.
Then back to the hotel where, as we have HBO here, we watched Game of Thrones on the TV. Well, I watched it, Linda dozed off!