33 in Napa Valley! Day four

AKA Debbie Does San Fran!

So we've made it this far! No one has been killed or anything! We've had our close calls, what with Deb aka Dale Earnhardt behind the wheel...God needed a driver!

Naturally, our day started out with yet another early morning wake-up call...we had to be on the road by 8:00 AM to avoid traffic! Or so we thought...we cruised right on in to San Fran without a problem (although we somehow were led onto the wrong entrance ramp and almost went to Oakland! Abort!). Things became tricky once we were actually on the streets of San Francisco. We had two cars once again, as Betsi had to leave early to help bring the supplies [read: beer] to the tailgating site for Sat. AM, so her and I were driving behind Miss Daisy (Sony) and Deb. Did I mention before that Sony was in the National Guard? Well, did I also mention that she failed map reading? Yep, Mr. Magoo/Miss Daisy was trying to give us directions to find our parking ramp in Chinatown. At one point, I turned to Betsi and said, "I guarantee you we just missed a turn," and two seconds later, my phone starts playing the theme from "Sanford and Son," as I had already switched my ringtone to that song for any of these gals when then call me! Sure enough, it was Sony telling us to go a different way, as they drove ahead of us at a stoplight and were waiting for us at the parking ramp. As it turns out, not only was Sony in charge of the map, but she was also on the phone with Sarah aka O3 the entire time, talking about their dog Luci F. aka Luci-Fer, who was going to be spending the week at the kennel while Sarah was out of town. I'm sure that they were talking about the fact that the dog was still alive despite Sony's best efforts to kill her by stealing her prednizone, but these Olin girls are resourceful--turns out they did this before and started feeding her Benadryl or Sudafed instead, and she lived! Miracles do happen!

Betsi and I did have a lovely tour of the red-light district (not nearly as impressive as the one in Amsterdam, for shame) and parts of Chinatown. Luckily for all of us, we made it to the parking ramp, which had little fortunes stamped onto each parking stall. I don't remember what our two stalls said...but I'm sure it was something helpful like, "You will become aroused by a shampoo ad," or something like that. We were right on the edge of Little Italy and Chinatown, so we headed towards Lil' Italy and popped into a little bakery so the ladies could have their morning coffees. Deb and I waited outside while Betsi got her huge coffee and Sony tried to order a grande cappa-mocha-lucha-whateva. It was no Starbucks!

So off we went towards Fisherman's Wharf, where we were to begin our adventurous day. Deb got all German tourist on us before we left Minnesota and had made up a list of places for us to visit while in San Fran:
1. Pier 39 (to see all the seals)
2. Alcatraz
3. Fisherman's Wharf
4. Ghiradelli Square
5. Ride a trolley car
6. Lombard St.
7. Coit Tower
8. Fortune cookie factory in Chinatown

Of course, everytime we went somewhere or did something, Deb yelled out, "Check!" and motioned in the air like she was crossing something off the [read: her] list. You may think I'm kidding, but this is no joke. It was like being on the 8th grade trip to Washington D.C. all over again!

Our first stop was Fisherman's Wharf (check!), where we saw the seals perched on Pier 39 (check!) and got our tickets for the ferry over to Alcatraz (check!). Deb signed us all up for the audio-guided tour, with those sexy little headphones, so we had no need for our own John "Vicky" Johnson, Alcatraz guide from So I Married an Axe Murderer. We took some very lovely photos on the ferry ride over (which I will post soon enough!), and before you could say "prison riot" we were at the loading dock! Hooray! I've always wanted to go to prison! Well, maybe not go to prison, per-se, but maybe visit a low-security prison like where Martha Stewart was kept---she got to make her own ponchos! I could knit one myself and wrap it up for Betsi as a Christmas present! She does heart ponchos!

Well, we got off of the ferry and walked up the plank to the main loading area at Alcatraz. We skipped the little speech made by the Park Ranger and hiked up the hill to the entrance to prison. It was a scene straight out of The Amazing Race, with Sony and Deb practically sprinting up the hill, while Betsi kept saying, "Do we have to run up the hill? I'm not running!" I think I was laughing the whole time. But I kept up with them, imagining that we were indeed trying to win a leg of TAR, and Betsi eventually caved and picked up the speed. We were the first ones inside the prison, so I guess we won! I'll have to post the picture of us once we got inside--we were all beet red, and it wasn't sunburn!

We spent probably an hour there, listening to our headphones, snooping in all the cells, pretending we were prisoners (see pictures that will post soon). After we turned in our headphones, we hit up the gift shop for the obligatory magnets, postcards, etc., then headed outside to take pictures with the city and Golden Gate Bridge in the background. There were some lovely Europeans that I asked to take our picture, so of course I returned the favor...unfortunately, it was extremely windy, so the hair was a-blowing everywhere! Oops.

Back to the pier we went on the ferry, and we hit up yet another gift shop so Betsi could get a prisoner's uniform to wear for the annual Sherman Halloween bonanza (alas, it didn't happen)...we tried to get Sony to buy the same thing for Luci-Fer, but she was still hating on the dog back then, so it didn't happen. We walked down the street towards the heart of Fisherman's Wharf on our way to Ghiradelli Square, stopping on the way to take pictures of various signs, fake pirates, loaves of bread shaped like crabs, etc. One store had a pirate statue outside that looked like Captain Morgan, so Deb and I posed with it. We had a little Captain in us that day!

We also passed some street vendors, and I bought a blue balls necklace that looked like something Betty or Wilma would've worn on The Flintstones, but unfortunately it broke later that night (more on that later). Sony also bought a blue necklace, but hers were more like flat turquoise stones...I don't think hers has broken yet. Once we got to Ghiradelli Square, we had some free chocolate, and Deb had a hot chocolate (which was on her list of things to do), and Betsi left us at this point to go get ready for the BBQ.

Part 2 of San Francisco Day aka Debbie Does San Fran! to come later!