It's a jungle out there (well actually a rainforest . . .)

Yesterday was the last day of Dad's conference! Yay!  So we got to spend the whole day doing stuff.  It was weird to actually be eating dinner at 5PM instead of at 8PM lol.  We checked out of the hotel at 11AM and then dropped one of dad's friends off at the airport.  Then we drove back to San Jose and stopped by the Tech Museum.  And . . . they wouldn't let us n because we had just renewed our membership and didn't have a recent card with us.  Then we drove the the ExplOratorium, and they wouldn't let us in either for the same reason.  here's a couple pictures of the hotel that I didn't get earlier in the week.

Oh, I thought I looked like an engineer with all of my over stuffed bags . . . so dad took a picture :)

This is the outside of the hotel--where you pull your car up to. and that's our car.

This is the hallway to the left when you first come in.

This is the sitting area to the right and there that weird Affinity fountain.

So here's a picture of me in the really cool chair!!

and this is the outside of the hotel

 And we drove under the golden gate bridge!

and under the rainbow bridge lol (ok it's the rainbow tunnel, but I think driving under rainbow bride is funnier)

I wasn't really that excited about going to Muir Woods because . . . well, I live in the woods.  So I didn't think it would be that cool.  I was soooooooooooooooooooo wrong.  We barely walked into the forest before it was time to leave because I was walking to incredibly slow!  That was the most beautiful forest EVER!  I took about 200 pictures at least (haha, I bet you're really jealous, Laura :p).  and actually I think I got some good ones too.  They're all on my mom's camera so I'll put those on the blog later.  I did get a couple with my camera though.

Here's a sideways panorama of a tree.  It was the only way to get the whole tree in the picture

Dad.

The Muir Woods sign.

 And here's me in front of a giant tree.

So then after we went to Muir Woods is the time we decided to go to the ExplOratorium.  And, like I said before, we didn't end up going.  But, they had this art palace right next door with these awesome Corinthian style columns.

Then after that we parked not too far away to go eat dinner and walk around the pier area.  This is right near pier 39 that we went to a few days ago.  In fact we ate right across from Pier 41.  First we walked through Ghirardelli Square and I was so hungry I was ready to eat just about anything.  So I immediately picked out a 50s diner called Lori's (I think).  But when we were in line dad pulled out his map and I saw another restaurant that I decided I would much rather go to.  My hunger could definitely wait!  So, we walked a couple of blocks and then got to our restaurant.

Yes, we ate at the Rainforest Cafe!!!!  I love RFC!!  This was the most amazing RFC i've ever been in.  It had three floors and was built kind of like a tree house.  I got a couple of pictures--but the lighting was bad.  We were in the under the sea room.  Dad ordered Mahi Mahi and strawberry lemonade and I ordered Maya's Mushroom Ravioli served in lobster sauce . . . so good!  And I had raspberry lemonade freeze in a cool light-up cup.

These are the stars at the top of the third floor.  I'm on the bottom floor looking up.

You can barely see the railing of the second and third floors.

Dad

Me.  These look weird because I used the flash on my cell phone camera . . . and it really doesn't work that well.

 Ok, this is from the top floor looking down.

Here's dad on the top floor.

Here's me on the top floor.

And here's me and an awesome gorilla.

We walked around a bunch of other stores after that and then it started getting really cold and windy so we headed back to Ghirardelli square. 

This is the ice cream shop we ate at.  Dad had dark chocolate and I had cookies and cream.  It was pretty good ice cream :)

This is as much of the Ghirardell sign as I could get in a picture from where I was standing.  lol and I just noticed it says "mustard" in the lower left-hand corner :p

This is a ship that I saw on the way in!

And we went down Lombard street.

We got to out hotel around 9PM.  I thought it would be weird going from the Hilton to America's Best Value.  So the Hilton was around $300 a night (dad's company paid for that) and this one is only $70.  When we got to our room we started laughing.  It was humongous!  We even had a deck and a kitchen! lol.  It was cheap so there were some downsides.  There was a teeny bit of mold on the bathroom window and there was no setting in the shower between boiling lava hot and extra freezing cold . . . so yeah that wasn't so nice.  But, it was way better than we expected!

That's it for now!  Have a great day.