Logos

Day 1: Friday March 15th: We flew out of Columbus early Friday with a lay-over in Phoenix. The first indication that this was going to be a very interesting vacation (to say the least) happened in the Phoenix airport when Evelyn emerged from the Lady’s restroom with a pair of long handled metal tongs – the kind you use to turn hot dogs on the grill – hanging on her back pack. We should have seen this incident for what it was, a harbinger of what was to come.
      “Evelyn, what is that hanging off your back?”
      “What the ___?” She looked like a dog chasing its tail as she tried to get the metal instrument off the plastic hook at the end of her backpack strap. Once she freed it, she hastily returned the tongs to the cleaning cart that was parked outside the women’s restroom. By this time we were all laughing. Apparently as she exited the facilities the dangling backpack hook picked up the tongs. Evelyn was a good sport. She laughed along with us as we replayed the incident for her benefit from our perspective. But the big question, that we could not answer, was ‘How was a pair of kitchen tongs used to clean a public restroom?’ Maybe the cleaning crew borrowed them from the restaurant next door to get something out of a toilet. Were the tongs sterilized before being returned to their use in the restaurant? These and other speculations kept us occupied until we boarded our flight to San Francisco.
      We got a Taxi out of San Francisco Airport to our hotel, the Holiday Inn at Fisherman’s Wharf. Interesting drive through the city. The cabby was talkative and enjoyed bantering with Bill, who rode in the front. Once we got checked in we headed toward the water front and had dinner at a seafood restaurant (I can’t recall the name) with a view of the bay. After dinner we walked along Jefferson Street all the way to Pier 35 where a huge Cruise Ship was docked. It was lit up like a floating city. We had a good view of the Bay Bridge which had recently been updated with 25,000 LED lights that seem to be moving as the pattern of light moves up and down the cables. We walked back to our hotel past all the usual tourist shops and restaurants. We stopped at a shop that sold confections and homemade ice cream where we got a small cup of our favorite flavor. Bill went next door to McDonalds for a cup of coffee. We all had jet lag so we turned in early.
Read Day 2: Sat. March 16th, Alcatraz and the MUNI.