Fleet Week... awesome day!!!

So my Aunt and I the other day made last min plans to head to the city for Fleet Week. We thought that taking the ferry would be best to save the headache of traffic and the headache of parking fees. So we took the 12:10pm ferry out of Alameda with perfect blue skies out. There was fog in the vicinity of the Golden Gate Bridge, but that wasn't going to affect us. We got to Pier 41 around 1:15pm and the air show had started. We saw the Coast Guard helicopter and one jet doing their thing while we were still on the ferry. When we got off we decided to walk past Fisherman's Wharf and down toward the Aquatic Park. The place wasn't too bad, because the hoards of people were mainly at the end of all their piers already watching the show. So the streets were full of people, but not as bad as I was expecting. We eye-balled some of the food on the way, but we hate eating and walking, so we wanted to find a place to settle first.

We wound up down the Hyde Street Pier which is where the vessels of the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park are docked. We saw how packed the lawns were at the Aquatic Park, and this pier wasn't bad. We saw what I think may have been the Patriot Jet Demonstration Team do their formation flying as we were scoping out the pier. But we were getting hungry and had about 45 mins until the Blue Angels did their thing. So we popped into Capurro's to have some beer battered shrimp and a soda at the bar. Then we headed back to our spot at the end of the Pier right next to Balclutha, which one day I'll actually step foot on. And a little while later the Blue Angels started doing their thing. They are always super impressive, and it's all the more exciting when they are flying right over your heads and crossing right in front of you. I also love the loud roar they make, it just gets your blood flowing. It made me miss when the Alameda Naval Air Station was still active and you would hear jets take off and land every day. I grew up listening to that and I loved it. The show lasted about 45 mins and we let the crowd disperse before thinking about our next plan. We played tourist and had someone take our pic with Alcatraz in the background and watched at several tugs turned the SS Jeremiah O'Brien around and put back onto it's dock after it's final cruise of the weekend.

We walked up to Ghirardelli Square to check it out. But really not a lot of shops to wander these days, it's more about the restaurants. On our way out of there, we started hearing a lot joyous hollering from a group of guys telling everyone that the Giants had won. Clapping was heard from all around the park. Anyway... I was starving at this point, so we decided to have dinner upstairs at Alioto's, which I love. Plus I've been having a craving for clam chowder lately, so that was going to get satisfied today. It was about a 30 min wait, but that seemed to fly by. We got a table by the window overlooking a marina and the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. At the time, the shades were pulled low because the sun was shining in. But by the time we finished our clam chowder, the sun was setting and they raised the shades. We couldn't have had a better table. Then I had the shrimp louie, which was delicious.

After dinner we had almost an hour and a half to kill until our ferry. So we popped into the Musee Mechanique to see Laffing Sal (seen in Princess Diaries among other movies), and play a few of the toys. Then we headed down to Pier 39 to say Hi to the sea lions, but too dark at this point to get any pictures. Then we just quickly walked up the pier before getting in line for our 8:20pm ferry back to Alameda. We sat on the very back of the boat, outside, and had beautiful views of SF and the Bay Bridge on the way back. Really nice day, but had to slather my face with lotion when I got home... the one place I didn't put sunblock on. Dumb I know.