Today, we had a tour scheduled to go to Muir Woods and Sausalito. We were supposed to be picked up at our hotel at 8:20 this morning. The bus picked us up and took us to the tour office, where we boarded a larger bus to begin our tour.
Muir Woods is about 17 miles north of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge. Once you cross the bridge, you travel on a narrow, twisting road to reach Muir Woods. Once we arrived, we were given 1 hour and 20 minutes to walk around. Jay and I completed a 2-mile round trip hike.
Muir Woods is home to the giant redwoods. Redwoods are taller than sequoias, but not as large in diameter.
After Muir Woods, the tour headed into Sausalito. We stopped there for one hour, which gave us just enough time to eat. Jay had a chicken sandwich, and I had a hamburger wrapped in lettuce. Next, the tour headed back to San Francisco. We returned to our hotel to rest for a little while.
I then decided that we should go to Lombard Street. Lombard Street is known as the crookedest street in the world. Originally, it was a straight road going up the hill, but in the old days, horses had to pull buggies up the steep incline. Sometimes the horses would lose their footing and fall down the hill, pulling the buggies and passengers down with them. Occasionally, passengers were injured or even killed. They eventually decided to make the road crooked in order to slow the horses down and make the road safer.
I knew that one of the cable cars stopped at the top of the hill, so we decided to ride the cable car to Lombard Street. There is a cable car stop a few blocks from our hotel, up a steep hill. We walked up the hill and waited for the cable car. The first two cable cars that passed did not stop because they were full. We finally got on the third one.
Unfortunately, it was not the cable car that stopped at the top of Lombard Street. We had to walk a couple of blocks to Lombard Street, and then we found ourselves at the very bottom. We had to climb a very steep hill just to reach the bottom of the crooked part of the street.
After taking pictures there, we decided to take the steps up to the top of Lombard Street. Once again, it was another steep climb. At the top, there were policemen directing traffic that was lined up, waiting for the chance to drive down the street.
[dropcap custom_class=”whb”]After taking some more pictures, we walked back down the steps to get to the bottom. I then decided I wanted to walk down to the wharf and get some ice cream. we found a Cold Stone Creamery. Jay just wanted the French Vanilla in a cup, but I opted for the Chocolate Devotion. It was chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips, brownies and chocolae sauce. It was so delicious.
To get back to our hotel, I decided we would try riding the city bus. I had downloaded the city bus schedules to my cell phone, so I knew which bus we needed to get on. Our CityPasses allows us to ride on the city buses as well as the cable cars. The app shows all the stops for the route we had shown on a map and it also shows where the bus is on the route. This allowed me to follow our progress and know when to get off the bus. The bus got real crowded. The bus driver also yelled a lot. We were able to get off at the correct stop.
We then caught a bus back to our hotel. Jay and I are getting pretty good at this bus riding, but tomorrow will be the true test when we ride to several different places in the city
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