Last day in San Fran

Thursday 17th September 2009...

The weather is lovely today, which is good news, as sadly this is our last day in lovely San Francisco. Jon has an appointment for a hair cut and highlight session at a very swanky hair salon in town. The concierge at the Fairmont arranged it for him so we are not expecting it to be cheap. We get a taxi to the salon as the Caddy is being used... Carol and Jim walked into town then up and down Market Street and did a spot of window shopping and sightseeing. I think we are all shopped out now after our spending spree across the US (we appear to have two more items of luggage more than when we arrived)...Jim sees the head office of his last employer and gleefully takes a picture whilst thinking - I don't work for you anymore...sadly the streetcar queue was as long as ever so we had to give that up for a no go..

After a couple of hours rest and admiring Jon's very smart and stylish new hair cut we took the House Caddy. The valet who drove us was only about 5'2" and seemed to have trouble reaching the pedals and seeing over the steering wheel, but he drove the big Caddy very fast so we got to Pier 33 (Alcatraz Landing) in no time at all. We are off for an afternoon tour of Alcatraz prison..it began with a short boat ride and then about and hour and a half to walk around the very atmospheric and creepy place...a fascinating place to look at and think of all the history behind it, but it was quite scarey to see the cells, especially Block D (Isolation) and to think of all those evil men who had served time in there...wouldn't have missed it for the world though...

After the boat ride back to shore, we walked along the Wharf front to the Rainforest Cafe where we had a nice evening meal...accompanied by waterfalls, thunderclaps, moving gorillas, elephants and big cats we tucked into steak, pasta, squid and nachos with dip!...then we walked back to our hotel and room for another early night - why are we always so tired?....tomorrow morning we're packing up and on the road again...this time to Ragged Point on the California Hghwy 1...a spectacular view over the ocean so I've heard!..