City by the bay, Part 1

As some of you might have guessed from my last post, I've been heading west, west, and further west this summer.

Taking advantage of a cheaper-than-from-Texas airfare to San Francisco, my sister and I met our brother for our annual sib-trip by flying from the mile-high city to the one by the bay.

And since we're the baseball fans in the family, and he's not so much, we tacked an extra day on to allow us to attend a Giants game in one of the most beautiful ballparks in the land.

picture taken showing Hunter Pence, former Astro, at bat

One of the prettiest, and one of the coldest! In this picture, taken from our pleasantly inexpensive seats, notice the young lady in the section below us donning an extra layer. As well as the kid with the kung-fu panda hat. We saw a lot of this head gear, on adult as well as kid heads, and I don't think it's solely because Sandoval's such a popular player.

In spite of the chill air, they provide a unique brand of between-innings race. Even more entertaining than the puffy taco antics at the Missions games in San Antonio. They have people on the water (McCovey Cove) beyond the right field wall on stand up boards doing the racing! The live action is projected onto the big screen. Here's a look at it:

Of course, some of the contestants fall in the water! Brrrr!

After we had a dinner of ballpark pizza, and watched several innings, we started a walk around the park. We wanted to see it from all angles since it's such a fine venue. Here are shots of some of its attractions:

Rather than going back to our seats, though, we decided to call it a night when we'd circled the park. Normally we don't believe in leaving games before they're over, but in this case, we didn't really have a dog in the fight because neither the Giants nor their opponents, the Mets, are favorite teams of ours.

Plus, as I've mentioned, it was COLD. And, we'd had a very tiring day of traveling. Up at 5:30 for our 3 hour drive to Denver. Although, as it turned out, we could have slept in. Our flight was delayed 3 hours!

Because of the recent accident at SFO they were operating with fewer runways than usual. We should have gotten into town in plenty of time to nap before the game, but the delay meant not only no nap but we even missed the first inning. (Not a small price to pay, of course, for a safe flight.)

So we were ready to take an earlier trolley back to our lovely boutique Hotel Griffon, perfectly placed for Embarcadero tourist-ing. (There were griffons everywhere, but the wooden sculpture on the left was the most impressive.) 

Our cozy room, which made us feel like we were onboard ship, the friendly staff, and the great location, made it worth the price (even though we got a good deal on kayak, it being a weekday night, it was still pricey by our standards).

The next morning, after a good night's sleep in our little berth, we still had a few hours before our brother joined us and we headed north. So we took a nice stroll along the Embarcadero.

The weather was wonderful, as we knew it's not always in San Francisco, so we had some great views.

We walked out onto one of the piers...

...and read with interest the historical plaques that reminded us what this area was like in 1906, when the big earthquake hit. Here's a historical photo on one of the markers that shows the ferry building surrounded by fire.

It survived the disaster and remains a scenic landmark for the eastern side of the SF peninsula, as well as a quirky shopping mall. We had one of the best meals of our trip there, Argentinian empanadas from a little booth.

Thus fortified, we headed back to the hotel where our driver was to pick us up, to head for points north. Stay tuned!