All in all: an excellent birthday present to myself / conference trip. I could easily go back to San Francisco any time!

It’s also nice to be home with my cats. They missed me.

After also touring the grounds (grapefruit trees!), I spent another few minutes taking photos outside, then decided I needed to continue on the road. I grabbed lunch from the drive-through at Jack-in-the-Box because I had never eaten there. (Side note: I never did get food from In-and-Out Burger. Next time!)

I decided to drive further south to Monterey so I could see more fish and aquatic animals at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The drive was longer than I anticipated, so I didn’t have as much time as I would’ve liked. I did see the sea otters get fed, I watched the penguins, and I saw a diver go into the reef aquarium to feed the leopard sharks. I would’ve liked to sit in front of the Outer Bay exhibit for a very long time, though. And I missed the octopus entirely. But this all means I have to go back again…

I had planned to finally eat whole crab for dinner tonight, but I had a long drive from Monterey back to San Francisco so I went to the first place on the Cannery Row that sounded good: Louie Linguini’s. It was a lovely little restaurant with a lot of fun photos and fictional news clippings, but I wish I had waited for crab (just for the experience).

I made the long drive back to San Francisco in the dark. It was just a little nerve-wracking with the hills just south of San Jose and the scary biker gang just south of San Francisco. But I had one reminder (from a grumpy taxi driver) in my mind: “Van Ness, Van Ness — Just remember: Van Ness!” Van Ness Avenue will get you to some very important sights in San Francisco, such as the Golden Gate Bridge.

I’m not sure why, but driving over the Golden Gate Bridge was nearly panic-worthy. I figured I had better just do it, though, so I could say I’ve done it. I took a little break at the vista point on the north side of the bridge, but then kept moving. I made a quick drive through Sausalito at night (I think everyone had gone to bed), then back over the bridge. I decided to drive up a very steep hill, then I drove down a very steep hill, and then I was very much done driving in San Francisco.

I had breakfast at the Pergamino Cafe before walking up a gigantic hill to the top of Lombard Street, “America’s crookedest street.” The walk down the hill was a relief for my legs, but I wanted to keep looking up at the amazing view (Coit Tower perfectly framed in the distance) — the shallow stairs almost made me trip a couple times.

I kept walking… and walking… and walking through North Beach, up Telegraph Hill (where I didn’t see any parrots, but I did see a hummingbird) to Coit Tower. Thank goodness: instead of climbing stairs to the top, there is a short elevator ride. I hung out for a while, just taking in the many different views down to San Francisco (my third 360° viewing of the week). I actually met someone else from Minnesota (and her traveling companion from Germany), but there were many languages being spoken at the top of the tower. If nothing else I loved how international San Francisco felt.

With time to kill, and no idea of what else to do (not enough to return to my hotel for a nap), I wandered back down to Pier 33 and had a couple drinks and very spicy eggrolls at Butterfly while waiting for the start of my evening Alcatraz tour.

Alcatraz was really beautiful from the outside — sort of sad on the inside. Click here for all of my photos.

When I got back into the city, I had dinner at The Buena Vista (and had two sips of their famous Irish Coffee — I didn’t finish it because whiskey is disgusting). Then I went back to my hotel, just in time to watch Grey’s Anatomy. I went to bed early-ish in order to prepare for a Friday full of driving.

• Flash CS4 Professional for InDesign Users
  hosted by Chris Converse
• Building Desktop Applications with Dreamweaver CS4 and Adobe AIR
  hosted by Justin Nemeth
• Common Mistakes Print Designers Make on the Web
  hosted by Stephanie Sullivan
• Fireworks Mock-Up Lab
  hosted by Jim Babbage

It was a pretty quiet day, overall. There were no group programs and everyone seemed fairly subdued. I know that by the end of the day, though I had some great sessions today, I was ready to get out of the lab and back into San Francisco explorations.

David and I indulged with dinner at John’s Grill — I had red snapper. It was delicious!

Then we sort of wandered around aimlessly before we met up with other coworkers (who were in town for a different conference) at an irish pub near the Embarcadero Center. We had a few more drinks at the hotel they were staying at, and met a few other coworkers who had arrived late.

Back to vacation tomorrow!

Today’s sessions and labs were:

• Getting Started with ActionScript 3.0
  hosted by Lou Barber
• Designing and Building Web Experiences in Flash CS4 Professional
  hosted by Lee Brimelow
• Flash CS4 Professional: Deep Dive with the Product Manager
  hosted by Richard Galvan

At the end of the day, Adobe hosted a customer appreciation event at the California Academy of Sciences and the de Young Museum of Art — “Where Art Meets Science.” It was such an awesome night! We only had three hours to see and do everything, but David and I managed to squeeze nearly everything in… Here’s some of what we saw (links to photos):

• The Theramin Lounge
• Contortionists
• Underwater Worlds
• Africa
• Dinosaurs
• The Living Roof of the California Academy of Sciences
• The Morrison Planetarium
• Sculpture by Maya Lin
• A 360° view of San Francisco
• Yves Saint Laurent
• Buildings made of Bullets

We ran around so quickly that I’m sure I’m forgetting a bunch of other awesome things. It was a great night!