When we got up on Thursday morning we were both feeling so much better it was time for a good feed this morning so as we were only planning on a short day as the weather was a bit overcast although still warm Jane headed off out to a place called Carl Junior’s just across from Halliday Plaza to get a couple of breakfast cheese grills. This is something that we had heard about but never tried, at around six or seven dollars each they were well worth it. They are basically cheese on toast with various fillings in, we had the sausage and egg, and it was yummy.
With full bellies, it was then time to head off out for the day just checking out the shops. As always when we out we headed up to the up to the end of the road and jumped on any bus that was heading downtown to the main shopping area, which all of them almost as we were only going a few stops and ended up at a place called The Crocker Galleria which is sort of an upmarket food court that only does soup and health food but that wasn't the reason we went, that was for the roof garden they have on top of the place. This has to be one of the greatest places to sit and eat your lunch where you can overlook Market Street and watch the buses and streetcars go by. It was a bit manic in here but then again it was lunchtime and this is a trendy place right next to the edge of the financial district so what could you expect. After about twenty minutes or so in there we headed out of the far side found a small coffee shop to get a drink in, the strange thing is the coffee is cheap and really good but the tea seems to be in these strange tea bags that seem to be in something like nylon bags so the flavor of the tea doesn't come out. Needless to say, we didn't buy any more tea after that, I stuck to the good old coffee and Jane has the hot chocolate. We sat outside by the side of the road on some seats they had but as the buildings are all very tall around here you are in the shade and it wasn't the warmest of days so didn't hang around there too long before we headed a couple of blocks down the road to a museum.
The Wells Fargo Museum is set in the lobby and part of the first floor of the bank by the same name but seems to be overlooked by most people who visit San Francisco even though Wells Fargo Bank is the oldest bank on the west coast of the USA and was responsible for handling most of the gold rush transactions from that era. They still have a lot of original items on view in there dating back over a hundred years or so including weighing scales, gold nuggets and even stagecoach that was used to transport money in that have been refurbished back to its original condition. Although you’re not going to spend too much time in here as its only small it's was well worth stopping for an hour. Sadly a few days after we visited here an armed gang crashed a car through the front doors in the early hours of the morning, took the security guard hostage while they smashed open the cases that housed the gold nuggets and made their getaway again into the night. The gold nuggets actually cost less than the damage that they did to the doors and the building by smashing a car through it. Fortunately, they were able to reopen again about four weeks later, the thieves were never caught unfortunately but at least nobody got hurt which is the main thing I suppose.
By now it was around four o'clock so we decided to head back onto Market Street and went into McDonald’s for some chicken nuggets as they were doing an offer of twenty for five dollars, darn nice they were as well. Fed and watered we moved on down Market Street just looking in the shops as went, as I said we hadn't planned on doing too much today, sort of rest day I suppose. Eventually, we arrived back at 5th Street and Market were the hotel was so it was time for the daily ritual of going in Walgreen’s to stock up on supplies for the evening. I was now feeling a lot better so Jane went back into the hotel and I carried on past down to the end of the road, around the corner to the off license or liquor store as they call them here for some tins of beer but ended up only drinking one that night I think, by now it was about 6pm but in the UK that’s 2am the following day. I don’t mind that sort of time difference it gives you plenty of time to look at what people have put on the web and use the free Wi-Fi in the hotel to upload my photographs of the day, by the time people had started to look at them I would be fast asleep in my big comfy bed with the fire trucks zooming past outside the window.
