Mar 7th PM - Sightseeing Day

Today we did some sightseeing. First stop was the Conservatory at the San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is a beautiful place with lots of interesting plants. The Conservatory is the white building.

 This is inside one of the Conservatory wings. All the concrete walkways had these ornate cast iron grills down the centers.

 There is some stained glass around the top of the center section of the Conservatory. These plant leafs actually looked like they had blue sections, until I realized that it was just the sunlight coming through the blue panes of stained glass.

 After spending about 90 minutes at the Conservatory we drove to the other end of the park, to Queen Wilhelmina's Tulip Garden. (The garden is named after one of Holland's longest serving monarchs.)

The windmill at Queen Wilhelmina's Tulip Garden.

Queen Wilhelmina's Tulip Garden is just a couple of stone throws from the ocean. We walked down to the ocean and had a late lunch at Louis' (pronounced Louie's). You can see the restaurant towards the top of the photo, a little to the right of center. We had a corner table with large windows on both walls. The place was opened in the 30's and is still run by the same family.

After lunch we walked out to the ocean. The concrete foundations you seen in the two photos below are what is left of the Sutro Baths. When opened in 1896 it was the worlds largest indoor swimming pool establishment. If interested you can read more about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutro_Baths

On the left side of this photo below you can see a "stick". It is one of the Golden Gate's suspension towers.

The photo above was taken from just around the observation area on the left side of the photo below, out next to the ocean. We walked out on the path you see. What you can't really see in this photo is the steps that run from the walkway up to the right side of the photo. The steps extend beyond the edge of the photo. That was the way we "climbed out". I wished that I would have counted the steps.

This crane is within a mile of the park I went to last week. I didn't notice it then, but I was back behind the white crane you see on the right side of the photo. The photos are blurry because I took them while we were going down the Interstate, near the east end of the Bay Bridge. I have to go back to see if I can find a way to get a better look at it.

I almost forgot, when we walked out to the ocean we walked a short distance up and down highway 101, just sightseeing. Kathy made mention of all the motorcycle cops parked in the center "median". We could see at least 8 motorcycle cops, at maybe 100 yard intervals, down the highway. Previously we had noticed a helicopter constantly circling above us for quite some time. We hung around for awhile and they completely shut down all traffic on the highway, this is a busy highway! The 3 motorcycles, a couple of limo's, several black vans, many black suburbans, an ambulance and assorted other vehicles rolled down the highway. As the caravan went by the motorcycle cops fell in at the rear of the procession. We finally found out that Israel's Prime Minister Peres was here trying to Silicon Valley tech shops into building some facilities in Israel. No doubt the government was scared to death that some Arab nut cases would try to assassinate him while he was here.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.