Wiped Out

We had planned a final day in San Francisco to photograph the areas we couldn't shoot from the tour or which required specific lighting conditions. We were going to drive the Explorer and hope we could find parking. In the end, three days driving to San Francisco and hassling with traffic was too much. We just couldn't do three days in-a-row in the city. Sadly, we missed City Hall, the Legion of Honor, and the cable car shots. All three were high priorities.

We didn't sleep in, but we relaxed all morning in the room. In the early afternoon, we drove to Annie's Annuals and Perennials, a nursery in Richmond. We had planned to go there on Friday, but we arrived a little too late in Pleasant Hill and didn't want to take any chances on Friday traffic. The nursery was like nothing we had seen before. They specialize in providing varieties of annuals you can't get anywhere else. It's probably a good thing we still have two weeks in this vacation, or we would have spent some serious money at Annie's.

Brian and Michelle picked us up for our final dinner together. I got to pick the place and chose The Cheesecake Factory. I hadn't eaten at a Cheesecake Factory for years. I forgot how huge their menu is and how large the portions are. All of us brought home leftovers.

After dinner, we had to say our goodbyes to Brian and Michelle. They had been wonderful hosts, and we thoroughly enjoyed being able to spend so much time together over the past six days. Even though Michelle was packing to move back to the Los Angeles area to start her new job and they were both working, they were very generous to share so much time with us. We're looking forward to them living in Southern California so we can see them more often.

When we returned to our room, we started re-packing for the camping portion of the trip. Tomorrow morning is going to be very hectic.