5 January 2014 - Last day of vacation

Last night we went up to the roof to watch a monstrous cruise ship back away from the pier. The ship is so large that from Robin's condo we could see the top decks of the ship peaking over the buildings. 


Here the ship is just starting to back away from the pier. You can see how it dwarfs the buildings on the pier. What made me laugh was the big bright spot in the middle of the top deck. 


It was a tv screen and many passengers were up there watching a football game. Not what I would be doing if I were on that ship. 

It was a beautiful night and the views from the roof were lovely.

The Coit Tower was lit up for the evening.

And so was the city. 

The view of the Bay Bridge light show was spectacular, too.

Sunday was my last day with Robin before moving over to the hotel for the sales conference. We were going to walk a couple miles of the Coastal Trail. We started on Baker Beach. The sun was warm and the sand like silk. We watched crab fisherman and the gulls who where interested in the crab bait. 

There was another bird interested in stealing food from the gulls. I think this is a Heerman's Gul. The juveniles are very dark with black legs. He could brake in mid air and turn on a wing finger. Amazing. He was slightly smaller and trimmer than than the gulls. This is one of the braking maneuvers.

The view of the Golden Gate from the ocean side was not shabby by any means. It called for a lot of admiration.  

We left the beach, walked through the Sea Cliff houses, up past the Legion of Honor to get to the Coastal Trail. The trail head we had planned on using was closed for renovation. 

Sea Cliff is filled with mansions. I was particularly taken with this set of gates. Jellyfish! My favorite! Now how to convince David to make me some! 

The part of the coast trail we were walking was very shaded and we both got chilled. We decided to go back to the Legion of Honor for a very late lunch. As long as we were there we stopped in to listen to the weekly Sunday pipe organ concert. The music was wonderful. The organist was played a selection of show tunes. While he played Shall We Dance, a young man pulled another man out of the audience,  dropped down on one knee and proposed. The audience went wild, clapping and hooting. The organist quickly changed his tune to the Wedding March. What a sweet thing to see. 

We also walked through the Anders Zorn exhibit. It was masterful. His body of work included many portraits, including President Cleveland. The portraits really made me think about cameras. Especially now,  how all the digital cameras have changed the world view from formal portraits to candid photos. Nor sure if that is a good thing. We stuck our heads in the Matisse room for a quick look.

 Robin took me downstairs to see an illustrated beastiary. It was gorgeous. The artist was Darren Waterston, who created the images with etching and aquatint. The text pages were just as interesting with a fabulous use of italics to enhance the words, whether it was italic pp in the word grasshopper to make the p's look like legs or to emphasize an entire word such as snake. Tilted my world a bit in thinking about type.
 














 

After this, we made our way home and collapsed with leftovers (yum) and were just happy to be in for the night. 

It was a really big week. We did so much, went many places, some of which Robin hadn't been to before, and I looked and looked until my eyes were about to fall out of my head. Can't wait to get back there and go see some more new things!