Well, here we are in, umm, Lodi, I think. We went a lot further than Red Bluff which is about what we figured for a halfway point. Mr Moo wasn’t feeling very tired so we just kept on driving. We figured we’d get through Sacramento and stay on the south side of the city. However, there isn’t ANYthing on the south side of Sacramento. So we had to keep on driving. The minute we saw a sign for a hotel, we couldn’t get off the highway fast enough. Mr Moo still isn’t feeling all that tired, but he’s pretty sick of driving. We really needed to get out of the car.

The drive down here has been (fortunately) pretty uneventful, save for the torrential downpour complete with lightning, running (yes, I said running) cows and the drug deal going down in the McDonald’s parking lot right next to our car. Otherwise, it’s been typical boring highway driving. We stopped at Target before we left Portland to pick up a couple things and we found a great CD of hip hop tunes. Nothing like Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-a-lot blaring in the car with the bass turned all the way up and the treble turned all the way down to get you in the mood for a long drive.

We’ve had a lot of fun and laughs today, but we’re very berry tired. We’re a lot closer to Yosemite now than we thought we’d be tonight, but we still have a fair bit of driving to do tomorrow still. Think I’ll end this here and get my sorry self to bed. Goodnight, fishies.

We're off to a bit of a late start today. The alarm went off at 0800, but Mr Moo decided that he needed some more sleep. We both slept like crap last night. The bed wasn't comfortable, it was incredibly noisy and it was too freaking hot - all things that were out of our control and it made for a miserable night. We just had a breakfast buffet at a restaurant across the street from the hotel and now we're off to find a grocery store to buy the perishables we'll need for the rest of the week.

We have groceries and we're back on the road. Had a bit of trouble finding a grocery store. We got off the highway where it looked like it was heavily populated. Lots of people = better chance of finding a grocery store. Well, we drove for what seemed like forever and couldn't find one. We finally stopped and asked a woman who was walking her dogs. We followed her instructions, kept going on the road we were on and ended up back at plaza right by the off ramp of the highway. The road had gone in a big circle and we didn't even know it! Weird. Anyway, there was a grocery store in that plaza, but the sign was so small and awful, we didn't even notice it the first time we had driven by.

We're in the park. Yay! We still have quite a bit of driving to do to get to our condo, but at least we're actually in the park proper. There's still some snow on the ground in spots which is an odd sight to behold considering it's May. You can imagine how much snow they must get here in the winter - probably way over my head. The camera is still packed away somewhere so I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I will as soon as we unload the car and unpack. I think the plan is to get everything out of the car then split up. I'm going to unpack while Mr Moo goes in search of the visitor's center to sort what we're going to do tomorrow.

We came across a scenic overlook right after I wrote that last paragraph so we got the camera out a little earlier than planned

Just saw a coyote. It ran across the road in front of us. We stopped to take a picture of it, but some cars came up behind us before I could get the camera out and we had to move along. You can tell that it had been fed (illegally, I might add) by visitors before because the moment we stopped, it looked at us like "What you got for me? Huh? Huh?"

We took a wrong turn (Mapquest said right instead of left) and we ended up at a different park entrance/exit. The ranger gave us proper directions and we made a u-turn back into the park. We're very close to the condo now. Should be there within 10 minutes.

We made it. The car is unloaded and we're kinda sorta unpacked. The car is empty at least. There are warning signs all over the place to not leave food of any kind, not even empty wrappers, in your car because the bears will break in and damage your car.

There's a thermometer on our patio. It's about 45 F right now, although it doesn't feel all that cold. We're both in shorts because they're the most comfortable for driving, but it didn't feel very cold when we got out of the car. Granted, we were only outside for a few minutes.

The condo is nice. It's very spacious and open - lots of room for two people. There's a queen bed and a sort of daybed in the loft. The couch downstairs is a sleeper sofa. And there's also a little space in a second loft over the main one where you could sleep on an air mattress or something. You could really get a lot of people crammed in here if you wanted. Think I'm going to unpack some clothes before I fall asleep here on the couch.

Didn't do much tonight except relax. We pondered taking a drive to the valley floor, but I was just too tired. It's been a long two days of driving, plus I slept so little last night. I'm knackered. So we made some dinner, Mr Moo learned some more about the new camera and we watched some brain rot. We have a full day planned for tomorrow though. Going to Bridal Veil Falls first then to the valley floor to check things out and have a look around. There's a guided tour in the afternoon that Mr Moo is interested in, but we might spend the whole afternoon hiking to Vernal Falls instead. We'll just have to wait and see how we're doing on time. Time for me to go to bed now though. Goodnight, fishies.

I don't know why we're having such a hard time sleeping, but both Mr Moo and I are knackered. I was so tired yesterday and I took my sleep aid last night. I still woke up every 30-60 minutes though. So annoying. Even Mr Moo reset the alarm clock three times this morning. Normally, he wakes up no matter what and is eager to get going. So you know he's dragging if he snoozed that much.

We're sitting at the base of Panorama Cliff looking out at Yosemite Falls. It's an amazing sight. We just stopped to have lunch and soak up some of the glorious sunshine. We have a little squirrel friend who has joined us. He's very brave and just about crawled into Mr Moo's backpack to see what we have to eat. The hike up here hasn't been too awful. I got pretty winded, but it's nothing my inhaler won't cure. We wanted to take the trail to Vernal Falls that follows the river, but it was closed because of rockslides. We're now on the John Muir trail heading up to Emerald Pool which is above Vernal Falls. I'm hoping that I'll get a burst of energy soon from eating lunch 'cause I need it! We have about 1.5 miles to go to get there and then we have to hike all the way back down. The squirrel is getting annoying so I think we're going to head out.

We're back at the condo. We hiked for 6.5 hours today and we are shattered. We hiked all the way to Emerald Pool and the top of Vernal Falls. It was a long hike, but well worth it. The views were spectacular. It's too bad our pictures won't do it justice. After we got back from hiking to Vernal Falls, we did another hike, a short one, over to and around the Happy Isles Nature Center (which was closed, unfortunately) and the fen that is being restored nearby. Mr Moo didn't listen to me about putting sunscreen on earlier and he got a little sunburned on the back of his neck. He's now running about the condo with a wet towel on his head, calling himself Lawrence of Arabia. Yep. He definitely got too much sun today. We just finished dinner (Stove Top stuffing and chicken). We're going to sort what we're doing tomorrow and probably head to bed right after that.

I can't move. I am so sore, I'm amazed I even managed to get out of bed on my own. I think it took me all of about 12 seconds to fall asleep last night. Woke up about 100 times again. At one point I thought I had a bloody nose and woke with a start. Turns out it was just my nose running something awful. Anyway, we're (obviously) not in any big hurry to get going today. We never did decide last night what we're going to do today. Considering how sore I am, I don't think we'll be doing much. We saw a bike rental place yesterday. There's paved biking paths that go all around the valley floor in a big loop. It's nice and flat and should be very easy to do. There are also some easy trails that we could do. Mr Moo is making eggs and toast for brekkie. We'll decide while we're eating.

We're about to head out for the day. Finally. Looks like we're going to try to rent bikes and tool around that way. The bike loop won't take all afternoon so we'll probably do one of the easy hikes as well. Gotta run. Cya!

Just sitting down to lunch in Yosemite Village. Mr Moo has run off to the car to get my sweatshirt because it's gotten fairly chilly and it's starting to rain a bit. We rented bikes and rode around quite a bit of the valley floor. It was definitely the way to go. You can cover quite a bit of distance and still stop easily whenever you want to. If we had walked the whole way, we'd still be out there and probably would be for the rest of the afternoon. Mr Moo should be back shortly with my sweatshirt and then we'll eat lunch. After that, I don't know what we'll do. I think he wants to do a hike, but it sounds like there's a heavy rain shower on the way. Might be a good afternoon to check out the museums and shops.

We're back at the condo a little earlier than planned. The "quick passing shower" turned into a full-fledged downpour. We finished our lunches just as it really started coming down. We spent some time in the visitor's center reading up on the history of the park. We also caught a movie they were showing called "Spirit of Yosemite", I think. Since it was raining so hard and I was cold, wet and cranky, we decided to just come back to the condo, have a nice dinner and watch a movie. There's a video "room" (it's actually a closet) where you can borrow movies free of charge here. The selection is a tad limited (think Repo Man and Ishtar), but it's free. We got The Cell with J-Lo. I'll put on my pajamas after dinner, curl up on the couch to watch the movie and try my best to not fall asleep.

We stopped at a vista point on the way back to the condo. Of course it stopped raining as soon as we got out of the valley. The following pictures were taken at the vista point.

I slept a bit better last night, but I'm still not sleeping well or through the night, even with my sleep aid. It didn't help that the people now staying in the condo next door were making all kinds of noise way past the time we went to bed and well into quiet hours. I finally went over there around 2330 and asked them to turn the TV down and keep the noise down. They turned the TV down right away, but still kept talking to each other like they're all hearing impaired. They're all awake and making a racket again right now. They obviously don't have a clue how paper thin these walls are. I just hope that I don't have to go back over there again tonight.

I think Mr Moo wants to head south today instead of going to the valley floor. There's a grove of giant sequoias down near Wawona that we want to hike through. There's a tram that takes you to the upper grove and then you hike back down. Our literature says it runs in the summer so there's a chance that it may not be running just yet. If that's the case, we'll only be able to hike the lower grove which will pretty much suck because all of the cool trees are in the upper grove. If I wasn't so damn sore still, we could probably hike the whole thing, tram or no tram. However, I'm in no shape to do another arduous hike right now. Plus, once we're done there, I think we're going to head back to the valley and tool around there some more. I won't be able to do that if I'm completely shattered.

Anyway, enough bellyaching. The game plan for today is to go to Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias followed by a couple short hikes in Yosemite Valley. It's looking rather cloudy out so pray that the rain holds off until tonight. Crappy weather and noisy neighbors aside, we're having a great time. It's so amazingly beautiful here. I can't even begin to describe it. It's just truly breathtaking. We're taking loads of pictures so, hopefully, you can get some idea of how gorgeous it is. Even though it's a bit chilly, I'm glad we decided to come now. It's very un-crowded. From what I've been reading/hearing, there's so many people here in the summertime that it's just miserable. We've encountered a few closed roads/trails that we would have liked to have taken, but that's a small price to pay for not having to fight mobs of people everywhere we go.

Mr Moo is out of the shower. It's my turn so I have to go. Cya!

We're back at the condo and doing laundry. Oh joy. We went to Mariposa Grove today and hiked the whole thing. Even though the little Yosemite newspaper said the tram started running yesterday, it didn't. We had to hike the whole thing. It was quite a bit of elevation gain, but it was gradual so it wasn't anywhere near as difficult as our hike to Vernal Falls on Monday. It was a beautiful hike too. The sequoias are something to see. It started raining on us about halfway up, but even that didn't ruin it. Just truly gorgeous forests. As we got nearer the top, the rain turned to hail and we entered the snow fields. There was about two feet on the ground. Fortunately, the road for the tram was fairly clear so we didn't have to wade through the snow all of the time. We tooled around a bit, saw the most famous trees up there then decided to head back down because I was getting pretty cold and couldn't feel my fingers any longer. I wish we knew what the temperature was up there. We were getting pretty cold even though we had come prepared with extra layers, heavy coats, gloves, hats, boots, etc. We saw some people heading up that way later with just sneakers and light jackets on. I'm sure they turned back before they reached the top or else they'd have frozen to death. We've been amazed at how many people we've seen hiking on some fairly long trails with totally inappropriate clothing and/or no food and water. Wait. I take that back. We really aren't that surprised. Stupid people are everywhere. We saw one lady heading up the trail with high-heeled patent leather shoes on. Who the frell wears heels in a freaking forest? You really have to wonder about some people. And they can't blame the park. There are tons of pamphlets and signs telling you what the trails are like and what to bring with you. But I guess it's important to look good for the squirrels or something. Beh!

Anyhoo, we had a great day and hike. Since I was kind of damp and way cold, we decided to come back here rather than head into the valley for more hiking. We called the visitor's center over there to check the valley weather. Since it was raining there, we decided to just stay in for the evening, do the laundry and plan out tomorrow - our last full day here. Mr Moo borrowed John Q so we'll watch that after dinner sometime. Think I'm going to defrost my toes a bit more in front of the fireplace then go check on our laundry.

It's almost midnight and I can't sleep. The neighbors are doing dishes, running the garbage disposal, slamming the cupboard doors and are, for all intents and purposes, screaming at each other. It's so loud, it sounds like they're in here with us. I'm beyond annoyed at this point. They don't speak English well so going over there to yell at them will do no good. I think we're going to have a talk with the management tomorrow and see if they can do something about it. This is ridiculous.

Tired. So tired. Our incredibly inconsiderate neighbors were up talking and laughing very loudly until the wee hours of the morning. Mr Moo and I are definitely going to talk to the management about it. There are signs all over stating that quiet hours start at 2200, but these people don't seem to care.

On a lighter not, we woke up this morning to find it snowing outside. It's a very slow light snow and hardly accumulating. Very pretty. I won't mind hiking in this. What I'm afraid of is that it's going to turn to rain while we're out there which will completely suck. However, there's nothing we can do about it. So, we'll go and make the most of whatever comes.

The game plan for today is to hike to Mirror Lake, Lower Yosemite Falls and Bridal Veil Falls. According to all of our books and stuff, they're all very easy hikes and take 2 hours, 20 minutes and 20 minutes respectively. There are also a bunch of viewpoints we want to stop at today as well. A few of them are on the way to the valley and several are on the way out. Finally, at some point, we have to hit the general store to pick up a few souvenirs, postcards and gifts. It's going to be a very busy and full day so I better get my butt in gear and get ready to go.

Oy. What a day. Here's a synopsis:

• Complained to management about our noisy neighbors. We're getting one night's lodging refunded to us. Yay! And the noisy people checked out today as well. Bigger yay!
• Scraped all the snow and ice off the car with a spatula (ack!) because that's all we had.
• Went to Bridal Veil Falls. Got very wet from the spray.

• Attempted to take some pictures at some of the vista points, but couldn't see anything because of the clouds.

• Went to the sports shop in the village. Bought some fleece socks for my poor frozen toes and an ear warmer/headband thing.
• Rode the shuttle bus to the Mirror Lake trailhead.
• Hiked all the way up to and around Mirror Lake in the snow and rain. Weather wasn't great, but it was a nice easy hike.

• Took the shuttle bus back to the village.
• Ate our lunch inside at Degnan's Loft because it was raining cats and dogs.
• Stopped into the Ansel Adams Gallery and bought some postcards.

• Took the shuttle bus over to the Ahwahnee Hotel to take a look around. Absolutely gorgeous hotel, but I'm not sure it's worth the $400 a night that they wanted. It was all a little too hoity toity for our tastes.

• Went to the village store for t-shirts and souvenirs.
• Drove back to the condo in a virtual white out. It was snowing like mad! We almost didn't make it up the last hill to the condo because it was getting so slippery.

• Saw three deer standing right by the road looking very suicidal.
• Went outside to take some pictures of the snow. The sun was setting so they came out a little too dark and some didn't focus well because of the lack of light.

• Had yummy hamburgers and potato chips for dinner. The condo has a gas grill on the patio.
• Watched the rest of Harry Pothead 2 that we started watching last night.

We really need to start packing and getting ready to go for tomorrow, but we're both tired and don't feel like it. Bleh. I guess I'll go start getting stuff together or else we'll be up all night packing.

We're up and getting ready to leave. Mr Moo showered while I washed dishes. Now it's my turn to shower while he makes brekkie. The sun has come back out today. Grrrrr. Figures it would on our last day. The game plan for today was to get on the road as early as possible, head straight to San Francisco and spend the arvo with Phickle. However, I think I'm going to call him, tell him we're going to be late and then we'll head into the valley for a while before we head out of the park. There are several vista points that we never stopped at because it's been so cloudy that we couldn't see anything. With the sun shining like it is and all the snow we had yesterday, we should get some beautiful pictures. This is all assuming, of course, that it isn't still snowing like a blizzard in the valley. It may be great weather here, but we're 2000 feet higher up. So, we'll just have to wait and see what Mother Nature has in store for us. Oops. Brekkie is ready and I haven't had my shower. Guess I'll go eat and then finish getting ready. Latah!

We've been robbed. :-(

We made it to San Francisco this afternoon, met up with Phickle, saw the Golden Gate Bridge, went to dinner at the Fog City Diner and the car was broken into while we were having dinner. They smashed the window in Phickle's Jeep and stole nothing but our camera. All of our pictures from today are gone. I'm so pissed.

I was in such a foul mood on Saturday after having our camera stolen, I didn't write anything in my journal. From this point on, I kind of wrote about everything the day after it happened. Might have some pictures to post here once we get our film developed.

Happy Mother's Day!

Haven't felt much like writing the past couple days since we had the camera stolen. Needless to say, I've been kind of poopy. But I figured I'd better start writing some stuff down before I forget it all.

Friday morning we left the condo. It has stopped snowing, but there was still a fair bit on the ground. The guy who worked at the condos was telling us that there was a good chance we would have to put the chains on our tires at some point since the main roads were potentially pretty bad still. I think he enjoyed freaking everyone out. Turned out that the roads were fine. They had been plowing all night and with the sun shining, there was nothing on the roads except a little bit of slush in spots. We drove down to the valley, drove around the loop and stopped at all of the vista points that we hadn't been able to take pictures at all week because of the cloud cover. I took a load of pictures that are all gone now because they were still in the camera when it was stolen. Fortunately, Mr Moo took some pictures with our regular 35mm camera so we won't be completely picture-less. We lost the pictures of the deer we encountered crossing the road in the village though and I'm really bummed about that. :-( After one last pit stop at the last vista point, we headed off to San Francisco. We got stuck behind some noodleheads in two RV's who had no clue about using the turn outs to let people pass them. We passed turn out after turn out and they never once let us get by. Mr Moo was getting really mad. We finally found a long enough straight away to pass them. We told the ranger at the park exit about what jerks those people were and asked her to say something to them so no one else had to get stuck behind them. First thing out of her mouth: "Oh, they must be foreigners." Think she's dealt with all flavors of morons there? Heh.

I had taken my anti-nausea meds (which make me very drowsy) before we left the condo and those finally caught up with me once we left the park. I woke up somewhere near Stockton, I think. It didn't take us long to get to San Francisco after that. The traffic coming out of the city on the other side of the highway was a nightmare, but we had pretty smooth sailing all the way in.

Mr Moo is out of the shower and I need to get in it. More later.

Just got back from walking through Chinatown. Mr Moo is taking a quick nap so I thought I would try to get caught up on my journaling. Where was I?

We arrived in SF on Friday right around 1600. We checked into the hotel and called Phickle right away so he could head over into the city. We had about an hour before he arrived so we unpacked and cleaned ourselves up a bit while we waited. Our room is just lovely. It's a corner room so we have lots of windows and light. There's a great big canopy bed, mirrored wardrobe and the bathroom is tiled in marble. The staff here is great too. They've been very helpful with maps, directions, getting cabs for us, making change and getting any information that we've asked for. Housekeeping comes twice a day - once to make up the room then later to turn the bed down (complete with chocolates and the next day's forecast on the pillow). Phickle arrived sometime after 1700 and we headed out to see the Golden Gate Bridge. We crossed over the bridge and went to a lookout point on the north side. It was the site of an old fortress, the name of which completely escapes me now. Since we only brought the digital camera with us for that excursion, all of those pictures are now gone as well. I bought some postcards today so at least I'll have something. Since the traffic was so terrible going back over the bridge, Phickle took us the "long" way around the bay, over the Bay Bridge and back into the city. We decided to go to the Fog City Diner for dinner. We drove around the block a couple times before we finally found a parking spot. Mr Moo had the camera with him in the backseat. He and Phickle decided to put it in the back of the Jeep under some stuff rather than take it into the restaurant with us. I almost said something about taking it with us anyway, but I didn't. Damn. We're all kicking ourselves about it now. We all should have known better than to 1) leave it in the car in the first place and 2) for being so obvious about it. It's clear now that someone was watching us because they smashed the window on that side and took nothing but the camera. They probably had it before we were even in the restaurant. I know it's just a camera that can be replaced and I'm very glad that no one was hurt, but I'm still very upset about the whole thing. I've never had anything stolen like that before and it was quite traumatizing to me. I'm also very upset about losing all of our pictures too. Just wish there was some way to get those back. They can keep the damn camera. Give me back my pictures! Bastards.

We did have a nice dinner. It took us a while to get a table since we hadn't called ahead. It's frustrating watching person after person coming in and getting seated ahead of us, but it was Friday night so it was to be expected. I had clam chowder that had whole clams (shells and all) right in it. Phickle had a monstrous cheeseburger. And Mr Moo had some seafood soup-like thing. For dessert, I had chocolate mousse, one of my faves. It was all very yummy and enjoyable since we were still ignorant to the fact that we were crime victims.

We headed back to the car and as soon as we turned the corner, I could see that the window had been smashed in. I said something about the window and Phickle at first thought I was talking about the stub from the parking garage earlier that was still under the wiper. It only took a couple more seconds for Phickle and Mr Moo to see what I was seeing. They rushed to the back to check on the camera, but I think we all already knew it was gone. And it was. We broke the first rule of city about not leaving stuff in the car and it finally caught up with us. We will all be much more careful after this though, let me tell you. The guys cleaned up and cleared out as much of the glass as they could while I kind of just stumbled around in shock. Needless to say, it was a pretty quiet ride back to the hotel. We said our goodbyes in the car and Mr Moo and I pretty much went straight to bed. I didn't sleep hardly at all that night, but at least I tried.

Phickle had called the police on his mobile right after we discovered what had happened. They told him he had to wait until Monday to fill out a police report. That didn't sit too well with me since we're leaving tomorrow and I really wanted to get it sorted before we go. When I got up yesterday morning, I called a pawn shop to see if someone could sell our camera that way. I would have spent the day going to every single pawn shop in the city if there was a chance of getting our camera back. The guy I spoke with was very helpful. He explained that they probably wouldn't go to a pawn shop because they have to show ID and get fingerprinted. They would more than likely sell it on the street somewhere for drug money. Also, he said we should go file a police report immediately because all of the pawn shops report their purchases to the police daily and there was a tiny chance it might show up. I called the police after that and found out where the closest station is so I could go file a report.

Mr Moo's aunt and uncle were picking us up here at the hotel yesterday at 1030. Since it was already 1000, I took a cab by myself to the police station to file the report and Mr Moo met his aunt and uncle here. They all then came to get me at the police station. It only took a few minutes to do the report since I had all of the information written down. The police officer told me that there really isn't any chance of getting the camera back at all and wished me luck with the insurance company. We have full replacement coverage with our homeowner's policy, but we don't know what the deductible will be. We're not 100% sure how it all works with electronics, but we're hopeful that we'll get all or at least most of our money back. We tried calling our insurance agent over the weekend, but he wasn't in. We'll wait and deal with it when we get back. We did the police report which is the most important paperwork that we need to do so I feel a little better about it all having that done.

Once Mr Moo and company picked me up, we headed to Pier 39 on the waterfront. We had lunch at a nice little restaurant looking out over the water. I had clam chowder again. it was creamier and a little more traditional that the stuff I had Friday night. After lunch, we strolled around a little then headed over to catch our ferry to Alcatraz Island. What a neat place that was. The families of the former guards had gardens and many of the flowers they planted are now growing wild all over the island. It's quite beautiful and quite a contrast against the old decrepit buildings there. We walked up to the cell house and took the audio tour inside. Lots of interesting information about the prison, the inmates and what life was like there. The cells were very tiny - hardly room to move around. The ones on the outside rows could at least see out the windows and had great views of the bay. There was a lot of information about some of the uprisings and escape attempts too. I'll have to scan in the brochures I got. We ferried back to the pier, did some shopping and went to Alioto's for dinner. It was an Italian/seafood place. I had steamers for an appetizer and rigatoni for dinner.

Mr Moo is up from his nap and wants to go out again. I'll have to continue this tome later.

We're back from our evening out at the waterfront. Picking up where I left off earlier...

We had a nice dinner out with Mr Moo's aunt and uncle last night. They brought us back to the hotel afterwards and we said our goodbyes. It was nice to see them again, but it's too bad we didn't have more time. Next time we come down, we'll have to work in a few days to go up to Petaluma to see them again.

It wasn't all that late when we got back last night so we decided to go out, walk around a bit and explore the area. We found an internet cafe so I stopped in to check email and such. Mr Moo sat and read the paper over by the door while I sat at a computer near the window. While I was sitting there, a really scary weird guy came up to the window outside right in front of me, started hollering a bunch of gibberish and started licking the window. At first, I thought he was goofing off with the guy at the counter behind me or he had me mistaken for someone else or something. However, he was looking right at me so there was no mistake. It was aimed at me and he wasn't stopping. I finally had to call Mr Moo over to make the guy leave. It was freaking me out. After everything else that had happened, the last thing I needed was some weirdo coming after me.

We walked around a bit more and ended up at the Sony Metreon. It's a giant entertainment center with arcades, stores and a giant movie theatre. We happen to wander into a store that had a whole bunch of flat screen TVs for sale. I thought we were going to be in big trouble, but we managed to escape with our lives and wallets intact. We talked about seeing X-Men 2, but we decided to wait until we got home. We went outside for a bit and walked around Yerba Buena, a park/garden area right next door to the Metreon. They have a beautiful monument to MLK Jr there. It's a huge fountain that's all lit up at night. Very pretty. As we were walking over the pedestrian footbridge to another area, a huge fireworks display started over the bay which we stopped to watch. So, while Friday ended on a completely shitty note, yesterday was loads better and ended with fireworks. :-)

So to today... We slept in a little later than we have been which was nice. I've been sleeping a little better here, but I'm still waking up a lot coughing. And, of course, I hardly slept Friday night because I was so upset. The extra sleep today was good. We went to a little deli a few doors down from the hotel for breakfast. The waiter was a tad bit unpleasant - very grumpy and obviously hated his job. He reminded me of the soup nazi on Seinfeld so I started calling him the breakfast nazi to Mr Moo. "No more toast for you!"

After breakfast, we walked over to Chinatown and spent a few hours shopping and looking around. There's so much to see there. I was a little upset by the live birds jam packed into crates outside of one restaurant waiting to be slaughtered. Fortunately, there weren't a lot of places like that. It was mostly souvenir shops, furnishing stores and other shops. We bought a paper lantern shade, some postcards and a couple yards of a beautiful black silk brocade fabric. I was surprised that we only found one store selling fabric. There were a lot of shops selling clothing, but just the one with actual bolts of fabric yardage. Maybe there were other stores selling fabric on the side streets and we just missed them. Mr Moo was really tired afterwards so we came back to the hotel so he could take a quick nap. I'm not sure how much it helped because he seemed kind of cranky afterwards. Cranky or not, we headed back out again. This time, we rode the cable cars across town back towards the waterfront area. Our first stop was Lombard Street, the world's crookedest street. We got off the cable car at the top of the street and walked down it. Next we headed over to Ghiradelli Square. I don't know exactly what we were expecting, but we were surprised to see it was just a bunch of stores. We had been told to get ice cream sundaes while we were there, but the line to the ice cream parlor was about 10 miles long. We left without buying anything, not even a tiny piece of chocolate. I amazed myself with my willpower.

We walked along the waterfront and window shopped. We even stopped into a few camera shops to see if anyone carried our camera (they didn't). At Pier 39, we visited the aquarium. It's a nice place, but it's way small. Just when we were starting to really enjoy it, it was over. Christian, one of the front desk guys at the hotel, had given us a coupon book. We saved $4 on admission to the aquarium so I guess we couldn't complain too much about how small it was. We walked around the pier for a while, watched (and smelled - ugh) the sea lions pushing each other into the water and decided to have dinner on the pier since we had another coupon. We shared some steamers as a starter and we both had the halibut for dinner. It was good, but nothing spectacular - especially considering how much we paid for it even with the coupon. Oh well. Can't have great food at every meal. We caught the trolley back and here we are. Mr Moo is already sleeping and I'll be heading to bed in just a minute myself.

The game plan for tomorrow is to head over to Britex Fabrics as soon as they open at 0930. Check out at the hotel isn't until 1300 so we have a bit of time. We want to go to the cable car museum for a quick visit and also have some brekkie before packing up the car and heading out of the city. We decided not to leave super early because we don't want to deal with rush hour traffic in the morning. We're anxious to get going though. I can't wait to get home and Mr Moo said today that he was already sick of the city. I think it was all a bit much after our quiet and peaceful week at Yosemite. We should be on the road by early afternoon at the latest. I don't know whether we'll make it home by tomorrow night or not. We'll have to wait and see how Mr Moo is feeling and how late he feels like driving. Even if we don't make it the entire way, it's good to know that we'll at least be home early Tuesday at the latest.

Time for bed now. It's almost midnight. Goodnight, fishies.

Monday was the day we drove home from San Francisco and discovered the large dent that the valet parking service had made in the car. Between that, the rest of our shitty weekend and the complete utter relief and euphoria of being home, I never got around to really doing any journaling on that day. The following is being written on the fly.

We got up Monday morning, showered and finished packing up all of our stuff. Checkout wasn't until 1300 and we wanted to avoid all the of the morning traffic so we weren't in a big rush to get going. We left all of our bags in the room and headed out. Our first stop was Britex Fabrics which was just a couple blocks down the street from the hotel. Dang! That store is amazing. Four floors of every fabric, trim, button and sewing thing you can think of. It's a good thing I don't live near there. I would be in serious trouble. I bought a few pieces of fabric - a cute flannel print to make some pajama bottoms, 5 yards of an adorable plaid and snowman print cotton that I have no idea what I'm going to do with and a couple yards of a cow print fleece to make a blankie or maybe a jacket. Nothing was very expensive and I think Mr Moo was very glad to get out of there so cheaply. One majorly annoying thing that happened while at the fabric store... We were looking at the silk brocades that they had at the store. They were just like the ones we found in Chinatown the day before. A woman came up and asked if we needed any help. I told her we were just looking. She then blurted out "If you want any of that fabric, make sure you buy it here because they charge twice as much in Chinatown." I looked at the price tag and sure enough, it was less that HALF of what I paid. Dammit! Screwed once again. Meh!

We walked back towards the hotel and stopped into a restaurant that the bellhop told us served breakfast all day long. He was wrong. It was a little after 1100 (I think) and they were already onto their lunch menu. Fortunately, the lady there was very nice and told us to try a place a block or so away that she knew served breakfast all day, called Dottie's. Apparently, Dottie's is very famous for their brekkie and the place was just mobbed. Granted, it was about the size of my walk-in closet, but it was still very busy. Now that we've eaten there, I know why. They food was fantastic. We just had eggs and stuff, but it was all very good and the portions were huge. We also ordered a chocolate chip scone that was to die for. If we hadn't been so full after eating there, we probably would have gotten a bunch of those scones to go. We just couldn't bear the thought of any more food at that point though. We were stuffed.

We managed to drag our bloated selves back to the hotel, checked out and loaded up the car. Actually, Mr Moo and the bellhop loaded up the car while I talked to the ladies at the front desk about sewing. Bad me. :-) I had been asking so many questions about the cable car system since riding it that Mr Moo said we were going to the cable car museum (it was free - yay!) whether I still wanted to or not. I just wanted to get on the road, but he was insistent. It was only a few blocks north of the hotel so it didn't take long to get there, but we couldn't find a parking spot anywhere. So Mr Moo just dropped me off at the front door, told me to take some pictures and learn as much as I could in a few minutes while he drove around in circles around the block. I did exactly that. I also picked up a book about how it all worked so he could read about it later. He had managed to find a parking spot up the street a ways, but he knew I wasn't going to be gone long so he never bothered to get out of the car and come find me. From the museum, we got the hell out of San Francisco and headed home. While we were on the road, I called our insurance agent to find out what the deal was about our camera. I didn't speak with our actual agent because he was out of the office for a funeral. The woman I spoke with, however, said that she was pretty sure he was going to recommend that we NOT file a claim for the camera. First of all, there is a $500 deductible for electronics which means we'd only get a couple hundred dollars in the end anyway. Also, she said that a lot of people have been getting their policies cancelled for less because of the economy and how hard it's hit the insurance industry. She said it would be in our best interest to "save" our claim for something major, like the house burning to the ground or something. It wasn't the news we wanted to hear, but it does make sense. We had a hard time finding an insurance company that would insure the house with the home-based business. We don't want to get our coverage cancelled because of a camera. I'd have to shut down my business and not let any clients in until we could get re-insured. That would be a nightmare.

We tried to not let the bad news about the insurance get us down too much and we continued on our way. We stopped one time for a potty break and didn't stop again until it was dinner time. We stopped at a Wendy's somewhere in southern Oregon. We sat by the window so we could see the car since it was full of stuff and after the weekend we had just had, we weren't taking any chances. We were almost finished eating when Mr Moo looked up and said "What the f*ck is THAT?" There was some stuff on the ground near the car so I thought maybe it was leaking antifreeze or something. I asked if that was it and he said "No, THAT!" and pointed at the big dent. ACK! At that point, he pretty much just got up, went outside and left me at the table. I had a little bit of my dinner left, but was so sickened by the sight of that dent I couldn't eat anymore. My mother-in-law was nice enough to let us borrow her practically brand new car for this trip and we were bringing it back with a dent in it. We hadn't driven the car at all weekend since leaving it with the valets on Friday afternoon and we hadn't left the car unattended since picking it up that morning except for the potty break. Even then, we pulled the car into the parking spot. Short of someone driving up onto the sidewalk, mowing down a bunch of pedestrians and backing into our car, there was no way it was hit while we were at the rest area. Since there was no dent when we turned the car over to the valets and there is virtually no paint damage in the dent whatsoever, it's obvious that it's the result of a slow impact and was hit while it was in the parking garage at some point. We called the hotel right away. Since it was nearly 1900, the people at the valet parking office had already gone home. They took our name and number and said they would pass it along and someone would call us the next day. They did and pretty much told us that because we didn't report the damage before taking possession of the car, there really wasn't anything they could do about it. Never mind the fact that the car was parked on a main street in downtown San Francisco with cars whizzing by at a squillion miles an hour when we picked it up. Silly us for not risking our lives by walking around the car to check for damage. Also, they conveniently parked the car in such a way that we had to walk around the back of it to get into it and we couldn't see this dent unless we were standing directly in front of it. Bastards.

They faxed us a complaint form which we filled out and faxed back, but we're not holding our breath on this one. The guy I spoke with said that the claim check ticket stated that we had to report the damage right away. Of course we didn't bother to read it. Who does? What irks me is that they took the claim check ticket when we got the car back so we don't even have a copy of it and don't know for sure what it said. Also Mr Moo recalls that they had stapled a piece of paper to it about extra fees for oversized cars that completely covered the back. How are we supposed to read it if they've covered it? I've spoken with a friend of mine who is a lawyer and she said that if they come back and say they won't pay for any of it that we might have some legal backing on this one if they did cover up the disclaimer. In the meantime, I've asked Phickle to go over, check his car and see if they cover up the back of the claim check ticket. He's going to make copies of it so we can have some evidence if that is the case. Because you know if we call and ask them to send us copies of our claim check ticket, they're going to remove the piece of paper. We were told we won't hear from the owners of the garage for a couple weeks at least. So, for now, we wait.

The whole dent thing pretty much knocked out what little wind was left in our sails. The rest of the drive home was pretty quiet. Mr Moo was fuming and I was just plain miserable. We had had such a wonderful time while at Yosemite and it was just so depressing that a few bad days in San Francisco could completely ruin the whole trip. If we never go back to San Francisco, it will be too soon. We did manage to drive the whole way home on Monday and walked in the door at about 2330. It was absolutely glorious to be home again. We unpacked a little, cleaned up a bit and finally crawled into bed for some well needed sleep.