Julie got up at 5am and walked around the deck. Bob slept in, that lazy bum. We had a ship’s tour to Muir Woods that was
scheduled to leave from the Stardust Lounge at 8:15am. We got ready and had breakfast in the Lido (omelets
and fruit again). We made it to the
lounge at 8am.
When we got on the bus, we were relieved to see that it was
configured like a normal bus, no party “booze” bus today!!! We drove by some trolley cars and some three-masted ships.
Mary, the guide, offered a lot of past and
modern San Francisco history as we drove north, across the Golden Gate and into
Mill Valley. Muir Woods is a site of
virgin redwood trees in a box canyon (which apparently saved the trees from
logging because they were so hard to get out of the canyon).
After a fairly harrowing trip on some very windy roads, we
made it to the parking lot. Muir Woods
is a National Monument, which is run by the US Park Service. We have 1.25 hours here and spent the time
wandering up the trail and back. It was roughly 2 miles of walking amongst
these incredible trees. Some of the
tallest redwoods are over 300 ft tall.
The immensity of the trees is awe inspiring.
After the walk, we returned to the bus and headed over to small
town of Sausalito. We had 45 minutes
there. We didn’t feel like shopping or
eating, so we went over a small park by the bay and sat and enjoyed the water
views. We could see the ship off in the
distance.
We returned safely to the ship, had lunch at the Trident
Grill and then went back to our room for an afternoon of blogging and some work. We had fallen behind with the booze bus day
and so had a lot of catching up to do.
We decided to go to the Avenue Saloon (a classic English pub
style bar) for “Name that TV Show tune” trivia game (we did fairly well,
getting 13 out of 15 right, but one team got all 15 correct).
Julie had a pink flower:
The Avenue Saloon:
The game finished at 5:45pm and we headed out
to deck 7 to watch the sail-away. We got
there at perfect time when the Captain backed the ship out of the berth. As always, during sail away, they played Louis
Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” over the speaker system.
We had a terrific view of the city as we sailed out. The weather in San Francisco during the three
days had been amazing. Clear, bright,
and no fog. Just a little brisk and
windy that first day. Over all it was a
great visit (ignoring the booze bus adventure).
The dining room seemed particularly empty this evening, but
the food was amazing as usual.
We both
began with a mushroom tart. The crust
was flaky and the mushrooms flavorful.
We then had a Greek salad.
Naturally since we were in a bay, we had to sail back out of it to head north to Astoria, Oregon. Thus, we once again went under the Golden Gate bridge.
Also, while we were sailing and eating, we saw a bunch of whale spouts and several times you could see their backs breaching. The image below, you can't really see anything, sigh...
Julie
had the pan seared, fresh Alaskan salmon with purple potatoes, fresh fava beans
and watercress espuma. The presentation
was incredible as you can see from the picture.
Bob decided to have the pasta, which was a rigatoni primavera with seasonal
vegetables, cream sauce, and fresh herbs.
Yummy.
For desert, Julie had Harlequin Trifle, while Bob had Coconut Pie Ala Mode (yes, we forgot to take a picture before he started wolfing it down).
On our way to the 8:30pm headliner show (with Jamila from
the Fifth Dimension), we stopped by the central atrium area to listen to Jazzdagen
(an international Jazz organization where a number of musicians and their fans often
sail on Crystal) and watch people dancing.
This is a picture of the Bistro area.
Jamila said that she toured with the Fifth Dimension for 4
years. Her voice was strong and she sang
a variety of musical numbers ranging from classic Whitney Houston, Motown to
Broadway (Les Mis).
After the show, we
called it a night, looking forward to a full day at sea tomorrow.
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