St. George Spirits

Continuing with our Saturday with my parents and Deb and Jerry. Not this last Saturday, the one before (I know, I'm a little behind in my blog posting)!! We just had such a great time with my parents here, I didn't have much time to blog.

After eating at The Butler and the Chef we roamed the market outside the Ferry Building and even bought some Christmas presents. Then we boarded a Ferry to Alameda to a distillery. You can see the tents from the farmers market from the boat

We got some great shots of the city while on the ferry. If you haven't gathered this from the blog yet, I love the city skyline and views of the city from every angle. Whether it was from twin peaks, Coit tower or the Top of the Mark, the city looks different and there's always something new to discover.

With six people on our Saturday adventure it was easy to get a shop of a couple people, but getting a shot of everyone isn't easy. This one on the boat was great with the Bay Bridge in the background.

We even rode under the Bay Bridge which is something Joe and I haven't done yet.

When we got close to Oakland we watched some huge container ships being loaded and unloaded. It was pretty fascinating to watch up close. I couldn't believe how big these ships were.

Back to the distillery. It was a good walk from the ferry drop off and right in the middle of an abandoned airforce base. St. George Spirits is best known for their Hangar One Vodka. I know exactly where that name came from... their distillery is located in hangar number one on the base.

We tasted nine different liquors ranging from vodka, flavored vodka, coffee liquor and absynthe. This wasn't a normal tasting like wine or beer. I had a hard time sipping pure vodka without any sort of mixer! The absynthe was interesting because it had lots of history, but it tasted like black licorice and that's something I do not like! The good thing is we got to keep our tasting glasses!

We took a tour of the distillery after our tasting. It was very interesting to listen to all of the different vodkas, brandies and liquors these guys dream up and then create. The tour guide told stories of both triumph and failure.

Alameda is actually an island across the bay near Oakland. After our tasting and tour we sat outside and ate some cheese and crackers we packed for the trip while we watched the sun set. The view of the city skyline was even better once the sun started to go down.

We took the ferry back to the city and enjoyed dinner on Pier 39 before calling it a night. It was a long day, but it worked out great. I worried we wouldn't be able to come up with activities that everyone in our group would enjoy. I think in the end we came up with some fun and new things to do.

Sunday we ate at Pier 23, but Joe and I also took the family to see our offices. It's nice to show them where we've spent so much of our time while here in San Francisco. I take a lot of pictures of the sunrises from my office and send them to my dad. They always amaze me and even though I've posted some in the past, here are some examples:

We got a few group shots in front of the window. You can see the Ferry Building just above Jerry's head. It's always fun to watch the ferries drive in and out of the Ferry Building.

Deb and Jerry headed home after lunch and we continued to explore the city with my parents. We walked through Chinatown and showed them the fortune cookie factory. We were headed to the Cable Car Museum (which was one of the last items on our San Francisco list) since it was closed when we tried to go with Tina. It was pretty fascinating to see how the cables and cars work.

We had some fun taking pictures inside and outside of the museum.

For the record, no, I do not wear that Stanford sweatshirt everyday. It does appear like that on the blog because I wear it often on weekends.