Jen's Account of the Day

We had a great tour yesterday; unfortunately we didn't use the same company for today's tour. The first sign that something was wrong was that no one answered the phone when we called them to ask when the bus was picking us up. We finally got a hold of them, about 20 minutes after the stated pickup time, and they told us to come down to their office and board the bus there. Fortunately, this was only a few blocks away. Unfortunately, it was cold and we were in a rush, so I was good and wheezy by the time we got there.

What we found there was pandemonium. There were buses everywhere and no one knew which one was going where or who was supposed to be on them. We found the rest of the people on our tour and boarded the bus they told us to. The bus driver told us he was going somewhere else. More confusion, and we were moved to another bus. He asked us if we all had our ticket; they'd given us one, so we said we did. After we were on our way we realized that they didn't give us the admission ticket for Muir Woods park, so we had to pay again when we got there.

This wasn't really a tour, so much as a bus driving us around and telling us when to be back. One of our fellow victims said they'd forgotten to pick them up yesterday, so we were somewhat nervous about being left behind. The driver himself was fine; no one told him anything, either. We had enough time in Muir Woods to see them, if not necessarily enjoy ourselves, but we only had 30 minutes in Sausulito. We had just enough time to wait in line and scarf down some food. Muir Woods was neat, but ridiculously crowded. There's better places to see redwoods elsewhere.

Our tour was supposed to end with a boat ride in the bay, but it was cold and foggy and we decided we didn't want to get on a boat with these people. That turned out to be a good call. Most of our fellow passengers were going to Alcatraz. The driver asked the radio which pier to drop them off at. Silence. So he dropped them off at the pier where the regular Alcatraz tours depart from. A few minutes after everyone left someone on the radio told him that they were supposed to go to another pier. The driver went after them, but at that point everyone had scattered and he couldn't find them. So we just went back to the office, stopping on the way to pick up a bunch of people who had been ditched on the street somewhere. We got off the bus relieved it wasn't worse.

We went back to the hotel bar. I asked Matt where we were picking up the rental car; it was then that he realized he never made the reservations. Fortunately, he was able call them and get a car reserved without any problems. Come eclipse time there were no rental cars to be found in Washington, Oregon, and Northern California.

Matt did manage to make advance dinner reservations for Hakkasan, an upscale Chinese restaurant, which was really good (and not busy). It was, like everything else in SF, ridiculously overpriced. I've enjoyed seeing the city, but I'm not super upset to be leaving it behind tomorrow.

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Day 2 - Day 4