Day 15–The coldest winter I ever spent …

Foggy and 55-degrees – July in San Francisco.

I got a good night’s sleep after picking Aryn up from dancing at midnight and woke up around 8:00.  I went out and let Aryn sleep for a bit more.

I love Fisherman’s Wharf in the early morning when things are just opening up and there’re no crowds.  I walked around for a while and took a look at the WWII submarine on display – from the wharf, not the tour.  Then went down to Pier 39 for some breakfast donuts – fresh-fried mini-donuts in cinnamon sugar.  When Aryn woke up, we grabbed Starbucks and went for more donuts.  I like donuts.

We got the car and headed for the Legion of Honor museum, someplace I go every time I’m here.  They have Rodins.  Aryn distracted me with a math-riddle and I missed the exit, which happens to be the last exit before the bridge.

Not so bad, except for the $6 toll to get back into the city.  The riddle wasn’t even a good one, since its question is based on a flawed premise.

I’m not very interested in porcelain, but after visiting Starbucks it was interesting to see what a serving of coffee looked like 200-years ago.

I loved this piece.

Screw Ikea, give me some Rococo.

After the museum I asked Aryn what she wanted to do and her priority was to avoid any more walking for a while.  I decided to drive around and see the city that way and figured to start by seeing if the Little Prius Who Could could handle Telegraph Hill.  So I plugged that into the GPS, but it couldn’t find it – lots of businesses with Telegraph Hill in the name, but no location. 

So I decided to drive down the coast road since we were there, and we’d see Telegraph Hill once we were back in the city.  Funny how that works, because if the GPS had understood Telegraph Hill, we never would have run across the horseback riding.

The stables are on a cliff a good 100-yards above the beach and the trail winds down to beach-level.

My horse, Breezy, kept wanting to rush up and crowd the horse in front of her and didn’t like to be held back to give them room – and she really wanted to go faster than the group.

Aryn’s horse, Ginger, shied a bit on the beach, but Aryn handled it really well.  Much better than any of the others in the group, who had a tendency to answer any untoward action by the horse with a high-pitched screech. 

After the ride, we circled back to the city and dropped the car off at the hotel, then went down to the wharf for lunch/dinner at Boudin’s bakery.  Aryn had a grilled cheese and tomato soup and I had their Havarti bread, all on Boudin sourdough. 

By this time it was after 6:00, so we browsed the shops a bit more, got Aryn a couple t-shirts, saw panda and penguin statuettes she wants, and headed back to the hotel to eat some pumpkin pie fudge we got in Monterey and rest for an early start tomorrow.

For snacking later tonight, I grabbed a crab-salad sandwich from the Alito’s street stall and Aryn got a long-loaf of sourdough from Boudin’s – I think she’s a convert to San Francisco sourdough.

On the city-side of the wharf, I see people in the Chipotle and In-and-Out burger and walking into Joe’s Crab Shack and Rain Forest Café … across the street is some of the best food in the country and $7 buys you a huge Dungeness crab-salad sandwich.

I wanted a whole Dungeness, but it’s off-season and the prices are high, so I’ll stick with the sandwich.