San Francisco Day 3: Golden Gate Bridge & Muir Woods

Our fearless tour guide, Lydia, packed in quite the day for the arrival of the "twins", better known as Sandra and Winnie. Following their early arrival, we set off for the ever so foggy Golden Gate Bridge. Again, all fog and no fun photos. But our destination today was the Pelican Inn in Muir Beach just across the bridge near the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  This was a fantastic find by Lydia as it was a reproduction of a 16th-century Tudor country inn with a restaurant that served primarily English fare. 

Naturally, I sniffed out the fact that they served their own Pelican Inn Pale Ale.  Done and done.  The other girls slurped down their caffeine and just shook their head at me.  Nothing says a day of hiking like a fresh pint at the local pub, right?  I suppose you should have the pint after the hike, but oh well.  For lunch, I just dove into the Fish & Chips. It was a pub after all!

After lunch, it was off to Muir Woods for a "walk" (to burn off that healthy lunch!) in the woods.  This is one of the largest urban national parks in the world.  

We started off bypassing the Welcome Center (saving the shopping for souvenirs for later) to hit the trails.  I am not quite sure exactly which trail we took as we just sort of walked through the main entrance following what I'm assuming is the Bootjack Trail but we circled back to the Welcome Center along the Hillside Trail.  I was quite proud of the girls for doing a rigorous climb up the hill!  I think our entire trek lasted a little under 2 hours but that includes several stops along the way for some photo opportunities!  Along the paths, we saw some pretty amazing and tall Redwood Trees. 

Our next destination for the day was an attempt to see the entire Golden Gate Bridge.  Although we failed again in our efforts, it was still a pretty decent view of the bridge. 

In order to rewards ourselves for the busy day of sight-seeing, we drove over to Sausalito to indulge in a little ice cream at Lapperts and shopping.

Our return trip to San Francisco included a drive by of the Full House houses, aka "The Painted Ladies", from the opening credits.  Later that evening we headed to Zazie's, a quaint French restaurant, for a tasty meal.

See more pictures from the day's events in my Picasa album.