This is the story of our 85-day trip around the world going westward. We started our trip on September 28, 2022, and arrived home on December 21, 2022, in time for Christmas – 20 plane legs later. I hope you’ll join us on this journey, and you can join us on our adventures by going to DAY ONE or joining at any point by looking at the individual days listed to the right. You may have to scroll down a little. We’d miss travelling since Covid, but that wasn’t the reason. Last June, having turned 70 recently and seeing health…
Tag: California
Day 24 – Farewell San Francisco and the Mission District
The only thing we hadn’t done that was still on Louise‘s list was visiting the mission district. Packed and ready to check out our hotel, we still had three hours to spend in San Francisco before picking up our taxi to the airport. Mission District is relatively spread out. I found the Women’s Building we passed the most fascinating. One of San Francisco’s largest and best known murals, MaestraPeace and serves as a visual testament to the courageous contributions of women through time and around the world. Every day, the mural attracts the awe and cameras of tourists from…
Day 23 – The Great Sausalito
The Pretty Town of Sausalito Today we took the ferry across to Sausalito. It is rather quaint and another place for the tourist to visit. We took a bus from the central town to see the floating homes. This is something like the batches in New Zealand, except it’s far more extensive, and they called them arks. They cost quite a bit of money as well. This is more like a floating marina with rather expensive rebuilt homes. We stopped to see the ceiling and statue at the other end of town before catching the ferry back to San Francisco….
Day 22 – Walking in San Francisco
Today was mainly walking in San Francisco, which was unusually hot for San Francisco. More like the weather we expect on our next stop – Hawaii. We went down to the harbour front and then back to Chinatown. I convinced Louise that she needed another massage so I could have one too. We returned to Top Therapy Massage, 811 Clay St, San Francisco, in Chinatown as the person who did Louise’s did a really good job. As usual, it was terrific and painful for me, making me wonder if I am a bit of a masochist. There are no separate…
Day 20 – Golden Gate Park and Botanical Gardens
A beautiful day and what better way to enjoy the day than spend most of it at Golden Gate Park. We reserved some electric bikes, but first, we stopped for a lovely coffee at Haight Ashbury, which leads into the park. The bike place promised to have the bikes ready for us, but they didn’t have any working. We were somewhat disappointed but walked down to the park entrance to find another bike rental place that was much more organized and $5 less. So off we went to Golden Gate Park We discovered that we were getting too old for much,…
Day 18 – San Francisco Iconic Districts
Today we visited a few iconic districts of San Francisco. First is the Alamo Square in the view of the painted ladies. These six houses were built in the late 1800s and made a fantastic picture of downtown. It’s one of those iconic views in many photos of San Francisco. Second, we were off to Haight Ashbury. Walking up and down Haight Street after a while, one gets to feel it’s a bit like Las Vegas. Overwhelming and glitzy from the main street, hiding something depressing behind it. It is also weird seeing young people in their late teens and…
Day 17 – San Francisco’s Chinatown
Today it’s Chinatown Louise‘s sciatica is acting up, and she’s in much pain while walking. So we decided to see if we could get her a Physio appointment which is ridiculously expensive and difficult to find. But we’re in Chinatown! We checked a couple of places, but they were all acupuncture, and then we found one that did massage. These places seem dark and questionable, but I assure you they are very respectable. No one spoke English, so I took that as a good sign. I had a foot massage while Louise had someone working on her back. Half of…
Day 16 – The Majestic Hotel Majestic
The Hotel Majestic had informed me that their elevator* had broken a few days before. They said they would do everything to ensure that staff moved our suitcases up and down. They gave us the option to cancel with no charge, but it was such a late date, it would’ve been impossible to find such a good deal as we had. They had us on the fourth floor; they were due to a convention when we arrived. Everyone was clearing out the following morning, and they promised that they would move us to a lower floor the following day. We…
Day 15 – Travel Day to San Francisco
Today is a travel day from Phoenix to San Francisco. We are still using our masks in all public transport and crowded areas. The last thing we want is to catch Covid somewhere in the middle of our journeys. People waste almost an entire day on vacation, study reveals That statistic is based on a one-week vacation. That means if we are consistent with the averages, we will lose 8.5 days. Our Travel Time Here are my calculations based on travelling between locations. It seems it is my “lucky number ten.” September 28 – our start October 12 – today…