Half Moon Bay and San Fran

We had a nice drive down to San Francisco, where we were staying with my second cousin Susan and her husband Bo in Half Moon Bay. Both days, we drove into the city and explored San Francisco. Below is a bookstore on Haight street called Booksmith:

 

And a cute little coffee shop:

And Amoeba Records, where my husband found two Mount Eerie records for his collection. A former hippie universe, this part of San Francisco was a pretty hip place, with cool vintage shops, record stores, and a Whole Foods.

We grabbed lunch at the Whole Foods salad bar, and walked through the Golden Gate Park, where you can pass through a creepy tunnel before getting to a children's playground:

The second day, we ended up in the famous Castro neighborhood, which is still a pretty hoppin' gay street. We peeked in a few shops and grabbed a cup of coffee at Spike's.

This was outside a shop:

I had the honor of driving our manual car in the tilted streets on San Francisco. I only stalled a few times before I figured out the emergency brake trick when you're really on an incline. When we would start driving on a street that was so steep that you couldn't see the bottom...we may have yelled.

Wheeeeeeeeee!!

Half Moon Bay was one of the prettiest places we've ever been. We walked about ten minutes from the house to the Ritz, where there were cliff views and beach access. 

We also visited Fisherman's Wharf, which was fun for about ten minutes, but also crazy crowded. Hitchcock and I aren't very spectacular tourists, in the sense that we usually don't like tours or other tourists very much. Generally, we prefer to explore a new city by staying in a neighborhood and pretending like we live there.

We could have easily stayed another couple days, mostly because Susan was such a great hostess. We laughed our heads off during our family dinner, and slept like little happy clams.

Our next stop is Vegas!!