Back to Reality...

As I begin to write this, I stare westward out of our hotel window on the 13th floor of the Parc 55 Hotel (apparently once known as the Renaissance Hotel), I'm wishing I had more time to spend here... along with more money to spend. And let's not forget a tandem bicycle to ride around the greater San Francisco area. That's something else that's sorely missing!

We trekked back down to the Wharf again yesterday so Valerie could shop for a few souveniers, and then made our way to The House once again for lunch. This time I had a striped sea bass plate for lunch, and she had the grilled chicken dish that I sampled a few days ago; this time there was an odd taste to the chicken so it wasn't a great memory builder. No one offered to ask how we liked the food, and seemed to be in a hurry to move us out... so we didn't bother to tell them. It's funny how one mediocre dish can turn rave reviews into a reason to try something new the next time we're hungry!

So, like all good tourists, we tried something "new" last night. The Cliff House, which has been around in one incarnation or another since the late 1800's, was our new target. We walked the short block to the Powell Street station and hopped aboard the "L" train, getting off just a couple of blocks shy of the Pacific coast and then began walking north. There's probably a mile and a half seperating the "L" train from the "N" train, which we planned to ride back into the city after recovering from our walk at "Java Beach" (we seem to have a knack of finding all the interesting espresso shops lately).

After some debate, we decided to catch a bus instead and stop at the Cliff House for dinner... but the bus never came. I called the dispatcher and asked about the frequency of busses on the line, and while it was normally 20 minutes the bus we were waiting for broke down... so we were looking at about 40 minutes until the next one came by. We figured that we'd already walked this far, so we'd just keep on going... so about the time we were at the Cliff House, the bus we would have been on chugged up the hill past us. But the walk, albeit windy and a wee bit chilly, was still the highlight of our day. (In the beach picture, the white building perched along the land's edge is the Cliff House.)

I had a sole dinner, fried in a macadamia nut breading with a fruit salsa on the side, a rice dish and baby bok choy. I was highly satisfied with my choice and only wish I could have gone back there today for more... instead of to the airport to suffer with airport food. Valerie had some clam chowder, but was saving herself for dessert... and found pure joy in a hot fudge chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream on the side.

It's just about time for me to leave the room and check out, walk the short block to the BART station and begin our journey home. It's been a nice few days... we'll try to leave the city in the same condition we found it in.