October 5

Yesterday we had another bus trip to San Francisco, to see all the sights in this big town.

 Our first stop was at the Golden Gate Bridge visitors center to pick up the guide for the tour today.

 It is amazing they call this red bridge the Golden Gate Bridge.

 This is the only cemetery in San Francisco, and it is a National one too.

 Tried to get a picture of this ship when we came into town yesterday but missed it.

 Our next stop was a ride on the Cable Car.

 Here we are all loaded on and getting ready to leave the station.

 Here are a few pictures of our trip on the cable car

 This was our driver, I asked him about the smell of wood burning after a trip down a hill.  He said they replace the wood brakes about every 7 day and his statement to us is that it might be day 6 today!!!!

 Going up hill no problem with the brakes here.

OK burning wood again, but no smoke yet!!!!
After our trip on the Cable car we loade the bus for a short trip to ______

 Can you guess where we are now? It is one of the biggest community in San Francisco.

 Yes we are in China Town!!!  It is amazing how many people live in this town!!!!

 Our next stop is down a ally that was a little weird.

 But their was a reason, we went to the Fortune Cookie Factory, the cookies were good.  After our visit we headed out for lunch on our own it was amazing how many differnet place there was to eat.

 After lunch we loaded the bus and drove about 10 blocks and was in little Italy.

 Cyndy said we should of came up here to eat.

 Oakland bridge.

 Now I know why I don't live here, their are way to many houses and they are really close together.

 After our visit we headed to Lands Ends Lookout, for the view plus the ice cream sandwich which are very popular here for having a oatmeal cookie with ice cream and a nice layer of chocolate.  .

Our next to last stop was Fort Point National Historic Site.

This is right at the base of Golden Gate Bridge.

As we were heading back to the campground and driving across the bridge we spotted this navel ship leaving the bay.  From what some of our guest siad it was the New Yoirk and it was build from the metal of the World Trade Center.  I am have no ship knowledge so have to go with the group.

 This morning we put on a pancake breakfast for the guest and these are called Rope Square Pancakes. ANd everyone thought they were pretty good.

 After eating it was a free day for them and they all went out exploring or getting things down like grocery shopping, or washing cloths.

What a great way to start the day with a pancake with syrup in the batter and a piece of bacon on it.

October 3

We were up a little bit later but loading the bus at 9:00 AM.

We are on our to San Francisco and Pier 39.  We were to explore Pier 39 and eat lunch on our own.

 So here are all of our guest heading out in different directions to see what is on this Pier.

 The signs that you find while walking around the Pier.

 We keep find guest all over the place.

 We even found a few Sea Lions making a lot of noise.

 Today we are going to be able to mark one more thing off our bucket list and that is the trip to Alcatraz.  Cyndy and I have always wanted to go out to this small Island.

 Here we are waiting to load the boat.

 It was a little windy or I should say really windy.  This boat runs on electricity, from solar panels and a couple of wind turbos.  THey started running these boats all electric and have cut the pollution of the bay by a lot.

 We had to walk up 130 feet in elevation in four stages.

 Here we are stating our auto tour and it was great.

 I don't think I would like these showers, it looks like only one temperature in the water, and my luck it would be COLD!!!!

 At least you got a nice bed.

 Well maybe not that good.

 We lost one of our guest today, he ended up staying on the rock/

 Lunch hall the most dangers place in the prison, here all of the end mates got knife, fork and spoon, but they never had a problem.  Lost a little bit of silver ware.

 We had a great day and it was a very interesting trip to the rock.  Tomorrow is another day of exploring San Francisco.  Can't wait to see where we are going.

October 2

We have made it to Santa Rosa and staying here at the county fairgrounds. The weather here is great and everyone is enjoying the trip so far.  We are going to be spending the next 5 days here with with 4 days of bus trips and one that will be a free day.
Today we started the day at 8:15 boarding the bus.

Everyone on time and ready for a great day, with our first stop at the Schultz Museum.

 Some of our guest enjoying the Peanut characters.

 Our guide took on a tour of the Schultz Museum  and explained us the history of Charles Schultz.

 This tile wall is full of comic strips of Peanuts.

 Charlie Browns kite stuck in the tree.

This wall mural of Snoopy's life in the comic strip. It has been a great visit of the Charlies Schultz Museum.  Our next stop was the Canine Companions for Independents, they train dogs for every type of a disabilities.  They raise and train over 100 dogs every year.

 Here we are being told about how they work and train the dogs from pups to fully trained dogs.

  As you can tell Charles Schulz  was involved in this program also.  From here we headed towards Bodega Bay for lunch and a small tour of highway 1 along the coast of California.  After lunch we headed to the Korbel Champagne Cellars for a tour.

 We had a great tour on how this winery turned into the only place in America that makes the best Champagne.

 These are the barrels used in the first years of making the Champagne, now they use more modern methods.

After the tour we got to sample a few of the Champagne's they make.  Today was a great day and looking forward to our trip to Pier 39 in San Francisco.