Driving from the airport in-car with Danny and Mark, the roads are eerily empty as the rain hammers down. As we enter the downtown area os this wonderful city, the rain eases and we turn into the familiar Four Seasons hotel alleyway off third street. Tim Hook hands us our room keys, he always arranges that someone from the hotel meets him with an envelope for each band member containing their room key, a guest rooming list and a local restaurant guide. This means we can go directly to our rooms without the nee for check-in etc. Very much appreciated at 2am. I slide the key into the door and try to be as quiet as possible because my wife, Laurie and youngest our son, Leon arrived at the hotel a few hours before us from LA. Laurie is originally from the San Fernando valley and they flew out to Los Angeles last week so she could visit friends and relatives as of course we live in the UK. The bags arrive within minutes, my head hits the pillow and I'm drifting off in minutes as I realize it's another Four Seasons cocoon-bed.

7am, Monday morning and Leon (14) is up watching his customary cartoons whilst beavering away on his computer, as always. Leon designed the Flash animation on my home page, something that would have taken me all day took him 20 minutes. He's quick. My mission for the day is to liaise with Briggs and Riley as my wheelie bag is in need of repair. These fabulous bags have a lifetime warranty, not something you often see these days. I organize a rental car and call a really helpful chap called Chuck Scheper who is ready to take the bag at their warranty and repair center located near Half Moon Bay about 40 minutes south of the city. Laurie, Leon and I hop in the Nissan compact and off we go. It's the first time I've driven around the San Francisco area. It's about midday and traffic seems not to be a problem at this hour. We head south on the 280 and join the 1, aka the Pacific coast highway, a road we're very familiar with from the time we lived in Los Angeles. Towards Pacifica, a known surf spot easily found as the only building on the beach is a rather cool Del Taco.



We arrive in Moss Beach and locate the B&R center. Walking in, Chuck greets us and we exchange pleasantries. I thank him for sorting this out and we ask if there's anywhere good to eat locally. He sends us just up the road to the Moss Beach Distillery. A restaurant with a view!



The distillery harks back to the prohibition smuggling days when it became a very popular venue for politicians, entertainers and films stars to drink their hearts content. It's also famous for the ghost, 'the blue lady'.

According to the ghostly legend, some 72 years ago a beautiful, young woman met by chance, a handsome dangerous man and fell in love with him. This sophisticated ladies' man was, say some, a piano player in the bar. The naive young woman, always dressed in blue was already married to another but her unsuspecting husband and young son never knew of the illicit affair. She made many trips to the restaurant to be with her lover. The beautiful lady in blue died in a violent automobile accident and it is here at the Distillery you will now find her searching for her lover. Many strange events have been documented since that time that can not be explained such as mysterious phone calls from no one, levitating checkbooks, locked rooms from the inside without any other means of entry, women diners losing one ear ring and then several of these are found in one place weeks later, date tampering with computers, sightings by small children. We are glad she is not destructive with her pranks and continue to hear of new events that cannot be explained.

Laurie and Leon looking windswept and interesting.



Lunch was superb and then we decided to take a leisurely drive back up the coast to Lincoln Park where we stopped for a walk, a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and a few photos.





For dinner this evening we became tourists. I called Dan and we all walked up to the Cable car station on Market street. We waited a few minutes as the cable car was manually turned around on the turntable and we climbed aboard.



The journey up the Powell and Hyde line to Fisherman's wharf took about half an hour but was fun and highly recommended to all visitors. We stopped at Lombard Street, for tourists to take photo's I'm sure, so I duly obliged.



Lombard Street is famous for being eight sharp turns (or switchbacks) that have earned the street the distinction of being "the crookedest [most winding] street in the world", a title which is obviously contested as I'm sure whoever issued the award has never been to the U.K. We arrived and wandered over to Alioto's a touristy seafood restaurant on the wharf where we ate Sicilian calimari (pretty good), Dungeness crab cake (v. nice) Garlic prawns (excellent) and I had a decidedly dodgy ceasar salad main course. ah well. It was fun.  Then we wandered back to the cable car station where there was quite a queue. we stood there for a while but soon decided to opt for a cab.