California - San Francisco: Part 2

It is our final day in San Francisco and I feel like I have seen nearly all there is to see. The day of the earthquake, after peeling myself reluctantly out of my bedding burrito towards the sweet aroma of piping hot coffee, TJ and I put ourselves together and set out to explore the city.  

Heat cut-out photo opportunities must be taken advantage of at all times. 

We walked down to Golden Gate Park so we could get tickets to see the King Tut exhibit at the de Young Museum. 

We should have known from the get-go that Tut was going to be a massive disappointment when immediately after getting in line we were surrounded by no less than 1 billion children. Apparently, King Tut has a sense of humour, and called down from whatever pagan afterlife he is inhabiting a plague of tiny humans to RUIN MY EFFING DAY. 

Like, one or two kids I can handle without going completely mental, but 1 billion children is unreasonable (I get that this is an impossible number and it was likely more like 50 children, but this is what if felt like, I swear to you!)

Their tiny bodies infiltrated every nook and cranny of the exhibit. They surrounded every single artefact with their plague-like existence. I imagine everything was extremely cool to see. I say "imagine" because my fight or flight instincts kicked in and I figured it would be bad form to punch a child so I just tucked my arms as close to my body and sped walked through the whole thing until I was in the safety of the gift shop. TJ made it out of the show (unscathed, I know not how!) we left and went to an area of San Francisco that I had just written a History paper on in my last semester of University: The Haight-Ashbury. The Summer of Love was in 1967 and all started in this neighbourhood. We took pictures of 710 Ashbury where the Grateful Dead resided, and again in front of Janis Joplin’s house across the street. We went to the Goodwill hoping that it would be filled with a plethora of hippie wares, but it was, alas, just another regular thrift store.

It got stolen so much they had to start mounting it 14 feet up the pole.

We visited a few of the other shops along the way, but the former authenticity of the area has been replaced with things like American Eagle and a store that sells overpriced novelty socks.

One of the more colourful stores housed a strange mix of items: vintage clothing and odd taxedermied animals in the form of squirrel-head necklaces and ravens dressed in tuxedos.

We went home shortly after and opted for a night in watching Deathproof and a show called 'Supernatural' that I'm quickly becoming obsessed with. 

Our final day in San Francisco, we opted to catch the bus down to the Golden Gate Bridge and walk across it! What I did not anticipate for was the incredible wind! My hair did not survive the ordeal.

I made it half way across before calling it quits. Counts right?

Tonight we're catching up on laundry, and preparing for our departure south tomorrow. Stops along the way include Monterey (home of the famous pop festival that was precursor to Woodstock), Morro Bay and Santa Cruz. I’m excited to see the beach and possibly camp in a Wal-Mart parking lot near San Luis Obispo. Nothing but good things await us even further south where we will be couchsurfing at a house in the Joshua Tree desert, and hanging out with a guy called “The Chief”.