Poniedziałek 4 Kwi 2011, 9:31

Hit the snooze button just once at 3:45 AM then dragged myself out of bed ~ but took advantage of my first dirty deed of the day by tickling Rachael as she covered her head with the blankets. We slowly starting moving; me taking a direct line to the Kureg to get our early stimulant as quickly as possible. Everything is preped though, so no drama stories to tell. We grabbed up our backpacks, wrapped our jackets around our waists and headed out the door. Headed to the airport to catch our 5:50 AM plane to San Franisco. After parking the car, grabbed the shuttle and was entertained by a driver that was way to happy at this time of morning, but that's a good thing. Tipped the man $3 instead of $2 for his pleasantness. Rachael cracks me up as she wrestles with her backpack. She's not real adventuresome, but I talked her into doing a trip way I like to do 'em. Just pack and go. I love to go to big cities, and just depend on the transportation when I get there.

Boarding was uneventful ~ and the Starbucks Caffe Mocha and donut was just right. Anything caffeine is a good thing on 4 hours of sleep. Got on a small United commuter plane for a quick jump to Chicago. You know one of those tubes with one seat on one side and two seats on the other side of the aisle. We both got a catnap of 30 minutes or so before getting off the short flight.

"Come on, let's go already" is racing through my thoughts as we wait for our backpacks. We only have 20 minutes to catch our transfer flight, which will then be a straight shot to San Francisco. Finally! We grab and go and again, not much drama, but got right in line with our pre-printed boarding passes. It pays to be organized and this is one of those times 'cause I noted some frantically getting their boarding passes before getting in line.

Now I can get some frickin' sleep! The flight to SF is a four hour one. So I settle in for a good snooze, plug the earphones in and set the iPod to shuffle ~ life is good. I think I was out about an hour or so before Rachael is poking me to look out the window as we're flying over some mountains. Hell, I don't even know the flight pattern so really don't know the location. But it was beautiful and the clouds were thin enough to see quite well.

We finally eased onto the runway as smooth as we left ~ grabbed our backpacks and we're off to catch the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). I had already done my homework. The BART costs $8 a person and once we get into SF, a bus will cost us $2 apiece. Compared to getting a shuttle van for $36 each, this was so cheap! So what if we look like two middle aged hippies. I sorta like it when people give you that look of, "Wish I were doing that" as we hop off and on the different metros to get to our hotel.

Speaking of hotels, we got there at 11:30 AM. Of course we gained back three hours heading west. I love the fact that you can travel west and regain some time! Since we were there so early, the hotel worker was cool enough to strore our packs in the back office for a later check-in time. I detached the over-shoulder pack from my pack, put some essentials like water, snacks, valuables, etc. in it and off we're off hittin' the streets of San Fran.

The busses here are pretty cool. When you get on for $2, they let you ride and transfer as often as you like for four hours. So we headed down to a a place on the Bay called Pier 39. You know the typical shops and restaurants. But that's cool. It was fun looking at the tourist shit before hiking over to the Alcatraz ticket venue. I'm a bit of a history buff, and Rachael likes to sight-see too, so we grabbed a couple of passes to get on the 2:30 PM ferry over to Alcatraz Island. Now to catch some food ~ 'cause we're both starving ~ well okay ~ hungry.

TO BE CONTINUED :-)