San Francisco and Sausalito

Chinatown, San Francisco

We arrived in San Francisco on Wednesday, probably the dirtiest group of people ever to check into a hotel on Nob Hill.  We were all filthy from camping.  The first thing I did was to march them into the shower, one by one, as soon as we got to our room.  The black footprints on the white tile bathroom floor were just one indication of our cleanliness, or lack thereof.

Chris had a late dinner meeting, so we walked around Chinatown.  We had a great dinner and the shops were fun for the kids.  On Thursday, Chris was working again, and we took the ferry to Sausalito.  My friend Gail in Kittery is an artist who used to live on a houseboat in Sausalito.  She told me where to go and we tried to look up her friends, but no one was home.  It was cool to see the funky houseboats and the kids were intrigued with that lifestyle.  Walking back from Fisherman's Wharf to our hotel, we met a woman on the street who recognized Beti and Berhanu as being Ethiopian.  I saw that she was also Ethiopian and we chatted for quite awhile.  She is in her thirties and was the first Ethiopian child adopted in America.  We had an interesting and lengthy conversation as we all walked her dogs up the long hill.  We've also met a number of Filipino people and we wish our children could have retained some of their first languages.

Chris and his Devcon friend, Tom Post, joined us Thursday evening.  Unfortunately, the Filipino restaurants are all outside the city and we did not feel like traveling any more than necessary.  We found a great Basque restaurant and had a wonderful dinner sitting outside.

San Francisco was COLD - 54 degrees!  We didn't mind.  We were sick of wearing the same hot-weather clothes anyway.

We left San Fran on Friday morning and went through Crater Lake National Park.  Crater Lake is the most beautiful blue lake you can imagine.  I wish I could add photos here more easily.

We stopped in Bend, but really wanted to get on with our trip to Idaho.  Hannah couldn't wait to see her dear friend, Amanda, and the others couldn't wait to see my friend, their kindergarten teacher, Ms. Shannon.  We all wanted to see Shannon, Brook, Amanda and Bruce.  

We were also excited to see our Western Stevens cousins - Aunt Dot (Stevens) and Uncle Stan Thomas and their family are also in Idaho and Chris was especially anxious to see them.