San Francisco Snapshots 2

If you missed it earlier, we're celebrating two years of living in San Francisco.  This has turned out to be an incredible place for us to live and explore.

For this installment of snapshots, I am focusing on touristy sites that are fun for non-tourists as well.  We explored a few of these places with friends who were in town visiting, and for others, we donned overly-summery clothes, fanny-packs, and big cameras, and just tried to blend in with the crowd...

Alcatraz

Ferry Building (the Saturday morning Farmer's Market at the Ferry Plaza is at the top of our list of favorites!)

Cliff House



Golden Gate Park

Coit Tower

Trolley Tour of San Francisco (The more authentic cable cars are fun too!)




Lombard Street

Catching up on other snapshot posts?
Photos of SF Bridges

San Francisco Snapshots 1

In the two years since we have lived in San Francisco, we have explored so many small corners and larger icons around this city.  In this week's post where I placed photos around the map, it was interesting to see photos land all over the city (and I had 100s more I could have pasted).  But now I'll zoom in a bit.  

Today, photos of the bridges.  The Golden Gate bridge is obviously my favorite--and the city's icon--but the Bay Bridge is pretty spectacular, too, and a new half of the Bay Bridge just opened less than two weeks ago (still need to check that out!)

Day and night, fog and sun and sunsets:

If you are visiting San Francisco, biking across the Golden Gate bridge is a pretty awesome experience.

The new wing of the Bay Bridge has biking and walking lanes.  That could be an interesting adventure!

San Francisco

Two years ago today, we moved to San Francisco.  September 12th, 2011.

We've made tracks all over the city--here's a small fraction of what we've covered in 2 years.  I'll post larger versions of these thumbnails in the upcoming days.
This city is awesome.  Looking forward to exploring more 7x7 hidden gems in the upcoming year!

Salmon Fishing

We've had three awesome weekends in a row now...

and I'm going to share in reverse order.  

Saturday we went salmon fishing off the San Francisco coast.  It was my anniversary gift to W, though I was just as excited as he was.  

We were awake and down at Fishermans' Wharf well before sunrise.  

Pulling out of port, we had some incredible views of the city before the sun rose.  

 

We left the Bay and passed under the Golden Gate bridge, rounded Point Bonita, and were just pulling up to salmon territory when the sun came up.  We fished off the coast of Mt. Tam most of the day.

 

The boat captain explained that salmon season was drawing to a close, and the salmon were just not biting much lately--they're full after a summer of eating.  

We had gorgeous weather the whole day--in the 80s--and the 10 people on our boat got very excited with each of the fish our boat caught.  

The fourth time a fish took the bait, the deckhand selected me to reel it in.  I was a little nervous, especially when he guessed the fish had hooked itself through the chin/neck area instead of the mouth, making the chances of the hook slipping out and me losing the fish very high.

W helped me hold my fishing rod steady, because we were in for a fight and my arms got tired very quickly; it seemed like I reeled and reeled and fought to gain ground for 20 minutes.  (It was probably <5). 

The deck hand was able to net my salmon at the very end, pulling it into the boat.  I was thrilled!

Biggest salmon of the day--25 pounds!

That was the final fish our boat caught, and after no bites for several hours, we called it a day and headed back to port.

Salmon roe. 

We got some great views of the city on the way back.  It was such a beautiful and clear weekend.

Back at the dock, the deck hand filleted the four salmon and divided it between the fisherman.  We returned home with two huge bags of gorgeous salmon filets.  

I enjoyed some last night; it was the best salmon I've ever had.  It was incredibly tender.

This guy got several bites too!  The boat captain hand-fed him.

We're planning to fish again next year, this time at the beginning of the season.  I can't wait!

Tuesday

Happy Tuesday, everyone.  What a nice weekend with an extra day to relax and enjoy!
I could use a 3-day weekend every week.

I'll have more to share about Labor Day weekend as soon as I upload my photos.  In the mean time, here is how San Francisco welcomed us back home yesterday evening:

I am blissfully awaiting our Indian Summer!