OK, we admit it - we were suckers for a marketing email that advertised great rates for our favorite hotel chain. We managed to get airline tickets before a fare increase and voila!, we were set for San Francisco. Who wouldn't want to, in August, visit a city that is 40 degrees cooler?
This was not our first trip to the city, so we went for relaxation over sights. On Sunday we did haul ourselves up at the crack of 8:15 (painful, even on Pacific time) to get on a bus to the wine country. The weather was great, our hotel was very comfortable, the food & wine never disappointed, and a bonus - we got to see two friends who live in the Bay Area.
Link to travel photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/sarahbowieme/SanFranciscoAndNapaValleyRRWeekend82208
On our last morning we took some photos (see slide show at top of blog) at the Palace of Fine Arts, built for the Panama Pacific Exposition of 1915. The romantic (Roman-style) Palace was so popular that although constructed of temporary materials - plaster and burlap - it was kept after the rest of the Exposition was torn down. The Palace slowly crumbled until funds were raised in the 1950s to recreate the original design from concrete. Just a few blocks from the Bay, even concrete is vulnerable to weather and age, and a modern refurbishment of the rotunda, colonnades and lagoon is now underway.
Weekend over...now we're back in Dallas, sigh...but at least fall is coming (someday).
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