Since we rented a car, and had decided not to walk around San Francisco, we thought we might as well take a drive up north to wine country. It is only about a hour’s drive up to Napa, and we stopped at a Wendy’s for lunch about 12:30 pm. We were both impressed by the size of the vineyards.

Certainly much larger than anything we have seen in New York State. We did not take the time to stop at any of the vineyards, but did enjoy the ride up to Napa and back.

After leaving M&H Type Casters, we drove around the Presidio to the Golden Gate Bridge, stopping a couple places to take pictures of the entrance to the San Francisco Bay:

Then we finally made it around to the bridge and crossed over to the north side:

At this point, we decided it was a very cool, breezy and foggy day to spend walking around San Francisco, and we were both a little tired from the trip yesterday. This is what San Francisco looked like across the bay at the north end of the bridge:

After a nice cooked to order breakfast at the hotel this morning, we got underway for M&H Type Founders on the site of the former Presidio at the south end of the Golden Gate bridge. Kenny Howard gave us a great personal tour of the facility showing us all the toys and gadgets a true letterpress printer should have in his shop. No, I don’t have some of them, but wish I did….

We were met at the door with a beautiful Hand Press:

Here is their line of Monotype Composition Casters:

And their line of Thompson casters along with an elrod and two supercasters:

We got out of there about 10:30am, and it was a good hour spent to see how M&H Typecasters are helping to keep the letterpress world supplied with “foundry style” type for the small shop and hobbyist.

Well, I woke up about 5:30 this morning, and found the view out our east facing window pleasing. It is about 20 minutes before sunrise, and the very old moon, almost ready to become a new moon is just rising before the sun… Tomorrow morning it will probably be to close to the sun to see…..

Ok, I am attempting to repost this article to the blog, and it keeps generating an error. I am hoping this change to the message will get it past whatever may be causing the problem….
One More Time:

Well, we had a good flight to San Francisco today. It was a little bumpy coming into Cleveland on the first leg of our flight, we had to route around a small thunderstorm complex by about 25 miles or so, but other than a minor amount of turbulence, it was uneventful. The layover in Cleveland passed quickly, and we were off on our way to San Francisco in no time (90 minute layover).

Marianne and I both managed to get a little sleep on the flight from Cleveland to San Francisco, which was nice, since we didn’t sleep much at all last night. But, it is a little after 9pm now, and I am exhausted, but wanted to post this blog before I went to bed… (It is after midnight eastern time, after all….)

After landing and navigating the San Francisco airport complex to get out luggage and then figure out where to pick up our rental car, we finally made it over to the Embassy Suites north of the airport. They were nice and checked us into our room, even though it wasn’t even 1pm yet (3pm check in time).

Then we went out for lunch and took a little excursion to see a few sights to the south:

First Stop, we had to check out the famous Google headquarters:

Then, of course, we had to check out the home of Danger:

Of course, I hit a bump in the road when Marianne took the shot, so it’s a little blurry….

Then Marianne got interested in some of the area trees:

Does anyone know what these trees are?? Marianne was fascinated with their structure and appearance. She was also enjoying the palm trees on our leisurely drive back up to South San Francisco along El Camino Real:

Well, tomorrow we head for M&H Typefounders at the Presidio in San Francisco and will then spend the rest of the day exploring downtown San Francisco…. Look for more tomorrow night…