Alaska

San Francisco

July 9th, 2017

Our adventure began on the 9^th of July as we flew to San Francisco one day early to be sure there were no mishaps with the airlines that would make us late for our cruise via the Grand Princess (our home for the next 10 days).

Patti and Audra were coming from Cody, WY and I was flying in from Colorado Springs, CO. San Francisco was mobbed with tourists from all over the world: well, it is summer after all! We hailed a taxi from the airport and we certainly lucked out with our driver who was from South Africa. His accent was a delight and brought us to the fact that San Francisco is truly an international city. Our ½ hour drive through downtown SF was eye opening (people, cars, buildings EVERYWHERE…), as the three of us come from 2 bit little towns (Aguilar & Cody). When he drove up to the entrance to the Mark Hopkins International Hotel, we were amazed: for it is a grand old hotel. A one-night splurge for our Bon Voyage!

San Francisco is an “up-built” city with high rises wherever you look. The architecture is so overwhelming and grand: as skyscrapers from the early 1900’s dwarf next the next generation of skyscrapers beside them. We could see Alcatraz from our window and Nob Hill from the “Top of the Mark” (the penthouse restaurant). We went to Fisherman’s Wharf to look around that afternoon and enjoyed a bite to eat (and celebratory drinks) at an eatery close to the bay.

Back to the hotel for an excited sleep. Up early for breakfast at the legendary Buena Vista Café… arriving just before 9am. Lots of people were standing around and we thought it was a waiting line. To our surprise, the breakfast Café did not open till 9am (and not a minute sooner). We were part of the ‘early bird’ club.

The Buena Vista Café is known for its’ Irish Coffee – so nothing would do but that 2 of the three of us had the ‘Bloody –Mary’ of Ireland. The breakfast was marvelous with one crab quiche and 2 Mexican omelets, go figure… I figured I would get enough seafood on our cruise, so why not have a Mexican omelet?

After breakfast we ventured across the street to Fisherman’s Wharf taking advantage of the spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge with fog hanging from it’s steel girders and then walking along the shoreline, until we spotted Ghirardelli Square… A must! Patti waited on a park bench at the Embarcadero Waterfront while we hunted for a Coffee Barista, surely there must be a “White Chocolate Frappuccino” somewhere in Ghirardelli Square…? No such luck.

After hailing a cab to take us back to our hotel for our late checkout at noon, we grabbed our gear and hailed another cab for the Princess Cruise Line – our ship: the Grand Princess.

I don’t think any of us have hailed so many cabs in our lives as we hailed this short day and night!

None of us had been to Alaska before so it was an incredibly exciting voyage into the furthest state to the North, “The Last Frontier”.

All Aboard…