We were in San Francisco to attend my husbands 40th Med School Reunion. After spending a couple of days in Carmel (part 1), we stayed in San Francisco, then Berkeley for the next few days.

Our hotel in San Francisco was in the newly redeveloped ‘South of Market’ area – near the two new sports stadiums, and close to the adjacent UCSF Mission Bay campus.

We did see Waymo self-driving cars, some with passengers, some completely empty, as we drove around the city the next few days.

Friday, April 12th – My husband chose not to attend the academic sessions since he is fully retired. Instead, we played hooky and went to Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach and Twin Peaks, all places we used to spend time in the early 80’s.

We parked in his old neighborhood, not far from the park, to see the status of the flat where he lived.

On to Golden Gate Park – We walked often through the Arboretum, and visited a pair of swans that lived in the lake. We didn’t see any swans today, but we enjoyed walking through the geographic sectors, especially New Zealand.

Back at the lake:

The Ancient Plant Garden:

Next, we drove west to Ocean Beach…

We stopped at the Windmill…

Next, we drove to the top of Twin Peaks to get the wide angle view…

Sunday, April 14 – Saturday was mostly given over to social meetups. Sunday morning we checked out of our hotel, but only had to go as far as Oakland, where we were meeting my sister later in the day. We took advantage of our leisurely pace to stop at Treasure Island, the bit of land in the middle of the Bay Bridge, where we had never stopped because we were always too busy going somewhere else. There is a paved path around the island with fabulous views of the bay, the cities, the bridges. We walked about a mile here.

We continued across the Bay Bridge, then circled around just to the south of the bridge for our next stop, another previously unexplored park called Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, in Oakland. Once again, we had fabulous views, through the industrial infrastructure. And there were birds along the shore right next to the shipping cranes.

Our next stop was the Claremont Hotel, a 100+ year old historic property in the Berkeley Hills. My brother-in-law generously shared his abundance of work-acquired points, and reserved us a room on the 8th floor.  Continuing our theme for the day, fabulous views of the entire Bay Area were spread out before us. We spent the next two evenings watching the sunset from this unique perch.

Monday, April 15 – We drove to the top of Mt Diablo to see the poppies in bloom. It was a bit foggy on the way up. We took a short hike at the top, and got to see the Franciscan cherts again, and some familiar bitterroot foliage, not in bloom yet, darn it!

Later, we walked around in Oakland, and then after dinner, we watched another incredible sunset over the bay.

Tomorrow we would return to the north, this time along Hwy 101 – to redwoods and beaches.