Cloverdale CA, pics of the area

Well it is Thursday and we leave here Saturday morning for our next stop, Redcrest, CA.  I do like this spot and have really enjoyed this area.  Here are a few pics from Cloverdale.

the Russian River

This local cemetery does not look used anymore but has graves dating back 150 years

a historic hamburger joint.....we had ice cream

Cloverdale CA, a little more San Fran

San Fran is an interesting city.  Must show a few pics of street musicians and cable cars, interesting buildings and restaurants!

The church says "Old First Church" on the front??

he was pretty good on those bottles and buckets!

Johns Grill is where we ate dinner and was the setting for the old movie "The Maltese Falcon" 

Cable cars are turned by hand at the end of the line!

Mikes friend, Joe and wife, Dina

Golden Gate at dusk from the north end

Cloverdale CA, San Fran and the Golden Gate Bridge

Saturday we drove down to San Francisco to meet up with an old friend of Mikes.  Before that, however, we spent the morning on the Golden Gate Bridge.  First we drove across it from north to south.  Then we walked it. Turns out it is the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate and finding that out was fun in itself.  Then we found out the retired battleship, the USS Iowa, was going to be towed under the bridge on its way to Los Angeles where it will be a museum.  So we stayed around to watch that very memorable event on this Memorial Day weekend.  I was happy to get these pictures:

Here is a clip from a CNN news article on the battleship:

Decades after transporting President Franklin Roosevelt across the Atlantic and fending off kamikazes in the Pacific during World War II, the USS Iowa passed Saturday under the Golden Gate Bridge en route to its final home and duty as a living museum.

Fireboats shot water into the air to salute the battleship around 3 p.m. Saturday, as it was towed through San Francisco Bay and into the Pacific Ocean. Scores of people watched from nearby - some on ferries, others from onshore and on the iconic bridge - under blue skies dotted with puffs of clouds.

The USS Iowa fired nearly 12,000 rounds over its more than 50 years in service for the U.S. Navy before being decommissioned for a third and final time in 1990.

After more than a decade docked in the Port of Richmond near San Francisco, the ship is heading south to the Port of Los Angeles in the care of the Pacific Battleship Center, which plans to transform the ship into a museum by July.

An interesting mixture, a battleship among sailboats....

Alcatraz

Cloverdale CA, more of Lake Sonoma

Lake Sonoma has several hiking trails and is so pretty we went out for another hike there:

from miles away you can see redwoods towering over this part of the forest

hadn't seen a snake in a while so this was cool