San Francisco Part I

During the first week of February, I participated in an internal audit of TTB's Compliance Laboratory (our sister lab) in Walnut Creek, CA. My flight to the San Francisco airport ended up going through Miami due to a crack in the plane that I was supposed to take to the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. I ended up traveling from 6am to midnight eastern time. On the bright side, I didn't fly in a plane with a crack in it, and I adjusted to west coast time pretty quickly.

After my work obligation was over, I went back to San Francisco to meet up with some friends. I had some time to kill before they got off work, and so I did some geocaching. The first find of the trip was as the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station that was two blocks away from my hotel. The clouds obstruct the view of Mout Diablo (http://www.parks.ca.gov/Default.asp?page_id=517), but I did get to see it clearly during my stay.

My rolling suitcase was my companion for the day, and again, on the bright side, it was great cover for geocaching in San Francisco. People didn't think anything of it when I stopped randomly, looked at maps, looked confused, and lingered in a place too long.


My favorite caches of the day were placed by a single cacher. This person had painted water colors of buildings in the city and uploaded them to the cache's website so that they could be followed like a scavenger hunt. I have not been very good at finding actuals in cities(physical containers hidden in the middle of very populated areas), especially on my own, but these visual clues made it quite easy and very fun. Those registered at geocaching.com can see the water color of this photo by searching for GC1JETZ.



There are many nice places for hides in the area between the Embarcadero and Powell Street Bart Stations, between Market and Folsom Streets. This picture was taken at the Yerba Buena Gardens. I really enjoyed spending my time in this area of the city.

San Francisco Part 2

Saturday was a fun day out with friends exploring areas north of San Francisco. We started out by hiking in Muir Woods (http://www.nps.gov/muwo/). After that, we drove along California State Route 1. The part we drove along is known as Shoreline Highway, a winding, two lane road through and over the Marin Hills, along Muir Beach and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It is a very beautiful drive, with views alternating among city, ocean, and rolling hills.


Throughout the day we did some geocaching. They had never been caching before, but they took to it very quickly! We found every one that we attempted.

Next it was on to Stinson Beach. We bought sandwiches and chips at a store in town, then took them to the beach to eat on the shore. It was quite windy and a bit chilly, but people were swimming, or at the very least, wading. I have touched the Pacific before, and so I did not feel the need to this time around.

Finally, we drove to (near) the top of Mount Tamalpais (http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=471). From there, the view of Oakland and San Francisco is amazing. I especially liked seeing the Golden Gate Bridge from this angle--how it peeks out from behind the hills, so unassuming for such a well-known landmark.