Well, the first day of the trip was a whirlwind as we tried to do and see everything in the rain. I have to tell you a couple hours of walking in wet squishy shoes is not fun, however, it wasn't too cold so it was tolerable. Here we are the first day standing in the rain waiting for the cable car, which turned out to be broken down, who would have know after standing 30 minutes in the rain we still wouldn't make it to where we wanted to go.
Here are the seals at Pier 39, they look happy, boy were they loud!
Our second day we spent time see the tourists hotspots. First we took the bus to Golden Gate National Park where the Golden Gate Bridge is located. It was just beautiful, the sun was shinning and everything was so green.
After leaving the bridge we had a time trying to get back downtown as some of the cables from the bus line were down, we went to get on another line but it never showed up, and after about an hour just decided to try the first bus line we had originally been on, which finally got us back to downtown. The buses all run on cables there to decrease pollution, it is pretty neat.
We went to China Town next, it was chaos, since it was Saturday and all the markets were open. We ate at this restaurant called New Asia where you just grab dim sum (chinese dumplings) off the cart as they pass. We had a ton of good ones, but don't ask me what they were because no one spoke any english, in fact we were the only non-Asian people there. It was quite an experince. It took a long time to get out of China Town because the buses were so loaded, I have never been pushed around so much, but I stood my ground just like my mom had taught me, with my elbows out and pushed right along. We made it back safe and sound. We did a little shopping since there was a huge shopping area 1 block from our hotel and we also went to the big shopping district where I bought a Fossil purse, which I absolutely love.
So, anyway, on Sunday we finally did spend a little time at the conference but we had also scheduled a trip to Alcatraz in the afternoon. The rain just wouldn't stop, but the boat went anyway. Here are some pictures, I think it would have been such a great trip if it wasn't raining so much.
Alcatraz has actually been a National Park longer than it served as a prison. The big "to do" is that there were five Yankees baseball players on our boat, so of course that was all the talk. But, the prison tour was great and the island was actually
smaller than I
thought that it would be.
We saw a lot of other stuff and ate a lot of GREAT food. Here are some random pictures from the rest of the trip.
Here I am at Coit tower, just a great place to look at the city.
Here is the most crooked street in the world, Lombard Street
Here is Dave, Tanja and Mark at the conference
Nelson and John 
Nelson and Maddy
The Ditchendorf family - Budd, Sam, Maddy and Macy
Maddy dancin'!
