So here’s hopin’. I am planning to update each day this week with details of my vacation last week, with a weekend post post about accommodations and other random ideas. We’ll see how that goes.

Monday

Monday I took a San Francisco/Muir Woods tour with Elie’s Green Dream Tours. Manny, the tour guide, was personable and amusing and tried to make the tour relevant to his guests.

The bus picked me up from my hostel (details on that later), and after the introductions and paperwork we were on our way. My tour included a family from Kentucky (husband, wife, daughter), a girl from Belgium, another from some Scandinavian country I can’t remember, a Russian woman, and the Allens, a couple from Australia.

(Random fact: Apparently it’s cheaper to travel to & around America than it is to travel within Russia.)

We began by heading over to Lombard Street, “the crookedest street.” After having to walk up a few pretty steep blocks, I saw the reason we couldn’t just drive up to the corner.

The street itself is very pretty, with lovely landscaping.

After we returned to the bus, we continued onward to the Golden Gate Bridge. We crossed over to the viewing area on the North side and wandered for a bit for some photo ops.

(This is my favorite shot from that batch.)

Now begins what may be the most picture-heavy portion of this entry:

Muir Woods

I desperately love the Muir Woods National Monument. I was trying to get back there before I left, but it didn’t work out. Unfortunately, the pictures don’t capture a tenth of the beauty and majesty of the redwoods. This place was overwhelmingly resplendent with the presence of the Most High Creator. Just walking along the path became an act of worship. I wish I was able to capture the magic in the photographs, but these are poor representations of what it was like.

After we crossed back into the downtown area, we wandered over to Twin Peaks and were able to take some shots overlooking the city before we wandered a bit more.

After the tour was over, I walked to Ghirardelli Square and the waterfront by Hyde St. Pier to purchase a Muni passport and people watch before the sun went down.

 

As always, there are more photos uploaded onto my flickr.