Montrose1100 Posted December 19, 2014 Author Share Posted December 19, 2014 I googled the drive to the Redwood Forest. 5 1/2 hours... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fringe Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 I googled the drive to the Redwood Forest. 5 1/2 hours... The Redwood National Park in Northern California is to far of a drive from SF. That should be a complete separate trip. It's worth seeing for sure. The largest of the Redwoods are up there but Muir Woods is very nice and only 30 minutes to an hour (depending on traffic) from SF. This last June wife and I flew to Portland, rented a car and two weeks later flew back from Oakland. We spent a lot of time in Northern California. It was a trip I could easily do over and over again and never get tired of. Hwy 101 is truly incredible. So is the Coastal Drive. You can't get in a hurry though. The roads are narrow and steep. Some areas take an hour to travel just 10 miles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mollusk Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 One thing to keep in mind this time of year is that while the Bay Area and the immediate coast have pretty stable temperatures, as you go inland (particularly to the north) things get a whole lot more wintery real fast. The couple that got snowbound on Bear Camp Road in far southwest Oregon a few years ago were only about 30 miles +/- from the Pacific as the crow flies. Some roads get closed as near as Mendocino County, and even highways might have chain restrictions further north as the weather demands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Pragmatist Posted December 23, 2014 Share Posted December 23, 2014 About 2 1/2 hours east, you can go up Highway 4 to Calaveras Big Trees State Park, just east of Arnold. If you like walking around through Giant Sequoias, that's a nice area to see. I personally hated the Haight-Ashbury area as when I was walking around, I had a bunch of homeless twenty-somethings strung out on drugs fighting each other on the sidewalk with another group just a bit further down standing in the sidewalk staring down my sister and me for no real reason. Other than that, walking around by The Embarcadero is nice. If you like German food, there's a restaurant called Leopold's by Russian Hill which is really tasty. The City Hall is a cool building to see. As others have said, Muir Woods is very easy to get to. You don't get charged going north across the Golden Gate, but coming back it's $6 or $7 depending on if you use FasTrak or the pay-by-plate option. They don't take cash at the booths anymore. However on the Bay Bridge, it's $6 cash or FasTrak. You don't have the pay-by-plate option there. Just keep that in mind. BART is pretty easy for going back and forth across the bay though, and MUNI will get you most everywhere you want to go in the city. As others have mentioned, Highway 1 is very nice to drive down, particularly south of San Francisco between Monterey and San Simeon (where you'll find both an elephant seal rookery and the Hearst Castle). However, this is a very long drive (a bit over 4 hours one way). San Bruno Mountain State Park is nice for hiking if you're into that sort of thing, and it's right next to the airport, so you're not too far out there. Regarding the time of the year: late fall through early spring is generally rainy, while summer tends to bring about coastal fog. Later in the spring is a great time for sunny weather without too much fog. In the summer, the fog generally will burn off by midday, except at the immediate coast. In the winter, fog occurs inland (due to moist grounds) instead of the coastal summer fog. As for temperatures, around SF and the Bay (coastal), it's generally in the 50's-60's for highs during the winter and 60's-70's for highs during the summer. Go across the mountains to the east just past Dublin in the summer and you'll watch the temperature go up into the 90's. As mentioned above, temperature is highly dependent on where you are. These were just a few more things I could think of when reading through this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montrose1100 Posted January 23, 2015 Author Share Posted January 23, 2015 So I checked out pricing at the end of September. 4 nights at the Mandarin Oriental + airfare was giving me $3,000.00! Yikes! I know when you change the flights to more civilized hours it's always an additional $200-$400, but geez... Then I checked out May, which is slightly cooler (the less I sweat the better), and the price for 4 nights at the Ritz Carlton + airfare is only $1,227.00! WOW! And it's on a Trolley Line? I'm pretty giddy about it. I also watched Vertigo last night and reaffirmed my desire to go. How can a city be so beautiful? I wonder why it's significantly less in May than September? Oh well. Another weird point was that on the return flight, which would be on a Monday, there is no direct flight on any airline from San Francisco to Houston. Aren't they both Untied hubs? A small layover in LAX won't be so bad. I can pick up some tacky tourist stuff I missed the last time. Win/Win. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mollusk Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 If you go in/out of Oakland rather than SFO, Southwest has nonstops. Taking BART from OAK to the Montgomery station in the middle of downtown SF is marginally quicker and cheaper than SFO to Montgomery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slick Vik Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Yea fly southwest I've seen $240 round trip. You don't have to necessarily stay at mandarin oriental as long as it's near a muni or bus stop you're good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montrose1100 Posted May 22, 2015 Author Share Posted May 22, 2015 First observations:Everyone is really nice and friendly. Food so far has been really decent but extremely expensive. Bartenders are nice (But no one knows how to make a Cosmo. They mix vodka with enough lime juice and cranberry juice that it tastes like a cranberry limeaide from sonic).I love how cool the breeze is, and the air feels so fresh and nice. I can climb the hills all day without breaking a sweat. People are in like full winter gear and I'm in shorts loving every moment of it.Going to explore a little more today and will try to post some pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montrose1100 Posted May 22, 2015 Author Share Posted May 22, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naviguessor Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 Still time to make reservations for The Tonga Room...and Beach Blanket Babalyon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montrose1100 Posted May 23, 2015 Author Share Posted May 23, 2015 Still time to make reservations for The Tonga Room...and Beach Blanket Babalyon.We will check out the tonga room tomorrow evening. Most of the bars are cash only which is kind of annoying. I also feel like there aren't enough brunch places.Painted ladies, palace of fine arts, baker beach, and perhaps the ferry terminal today. Renting a car tomorrow to check out the forest and drive down the coast. I'm super impressed with the city and I cannot get enough of this weather. Perfect for hangovers! The ritz unfortunately doesn't have a pool anymore. I was hoping to take a dip but the cool breeze is enough.We also thought about a helicopter tour but didn't book early enough. I will definitely be coming back for that and an Alcatraz tour. It's so different from LA, and really anywhere else in the world. Every time I hear the cable car ring it's bell I get giddy like a school girl. It's also really cool how they have the old 1940's street cars too. The pier's were extremely touristy (rippeys, wax museum, rain forest cafe), but it was worth it to take a boat ride out to the bridge and Alcatraz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mkultra25 Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 Most of the bars are cash only which is kind of annoying. That's pretty odd. Given the proximity to Silicon Valley I'd have expected most of them to have iPads/iPhones sporting Square card readers in lieu of garden-variety POS terminals. Businesses always gripe about the merchant fees they're charged by card companies but it still seems like they'd be leaving a bunch of money on the table by adopting a cash-only policy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montrose1100 Posted May 24, 2015 Author Share Posted May 24, 2015 What a beautiful place! So I was waking on Baker Beach and I turned around and there was a guy running towards to water... Completely nude. And this woman was sitting in the water. It was freezing cold! I absolutely love it here. It's my second favorite place in the U.S. after New York City. It's crazy beautiful! Going to rent a car tomorrow morning, drive to the big basin redwoods state park, then to Santa Anna, and drive up the coast over the Golden Gate Bridge to the Muir Woods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
august948 Posted May 25, 2015 Share Posted May 25, 2015 That's pretty odd. Given the proximity to Silicon Valley I'd have expected most of them to have iPads/iPhones sporting Square card readers in lieu of garden-variety POS terminals. Businesses always gripe about the merchant fees they're charged by card companies but it still seems like they'd be leaving a bunch of money on the table by adopting a cash-only policy. Taking cash only has some not-so-legal perks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montrose1100 Posted May 26, 2015 Author Share Posted May 26, 2015 Driving to Big Basin was thrilling in the fog. I'm actually glad it was foggy. I made the mistake of looking down during a banked curve. Through a patch of sunlight. Santa Cruz was god awful. Driving to it was cool with the little towns like Boulder City. We stopped in Half Moon Bay to enjoy the coast. Although there was so many children running around it sounded like a bird sanctuary. The Castro was exciting. The stink of weed was overwhelming combined with the heaters being turned on, we probably went to every single bar in the area for one drink only because it stank and was hot. Not that I have a problem with that activity, I just want my bars/clubs to be odor free and at dancing temperature. A lot of the bars were identical, kind of like how every bar in Montrose is blending into the same one. Our hotel bar was really nice. Overall a wonderful, beautiful, charming city. I would definitely go back. The food either sucked bad or was extremely delicious. Nothing compared to NYC, and certainly behind Houston in that respect. The drinks were nothing to write home about. About halfway through the trip I was tired of being dissapointed and stuck to wine & beer (because you can't F that up). The weather was the absolute best. Favorite weather in the whole world! The streets were immaculate. Aside from the occasional drifter, not one cigarette on the sidewalk (which is strange because there were no ashtrays anywhere). Another note is that Heinz ketchup in the sense of thinking about regular tomato ketchup was rare. Their ketchup was like a mild salsa. I thought that was strange. Anyways, I'll come back and book a few things in advance next time. There were three wheeled scooter cars (gps tours), and they looked like so much fun to drive! Edit: posted the wrong picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
august948 Posted May 27, 2015 Share Posted May 27, 2015 This is on my to-do list next time I'm in SF. http://www.oursausalito.com/golden-gate-bridge-bike-to-sausalito.html golden-gate-bridge-bike-to-sausalito Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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