San Francisco Part Deux

I have to apologize for being such a lame picture taker. I brought my camera with me to San Fran but I forgot it in the hotel room a lot of the time and I guess I am just too self conscious to whip it out the rest.

So, that being said, you are looking at a picture of the view from the Top of the Mark. The Top of the Mark is a bar at the very tip-top of the Mark Hopkins hotel. This little adventure did not start out well at all and sparked the only Erica melt-down of the trip.

Jeff called to see what time the bar opened and said something vague like "Are you guys open this afternoon?" and the person on the other end said "Of course!". Off we go. We arrived at our destination at about 3:45 pm and got into an elevator. I hit the "Top of the Mark" button and the elevator stopped at floor 9 and refused to go any higher. In fact, it felt like floor 9 was high enough thank you very much, and decided to head back down to the lobby. Ding! Doors open and here we are back where we started from. We got into the other elevator and tried again. And again. We decided that we would try to go as highest floor and walk the rest of the way as the elevators were obviously NOT cooperating. Floor 18 is the penthouse and let me tell you, there are only two doors on this floor. One to the penthouse itself and the other to an alarmed emergency exit. Crap. Foiled again. We headed back down to the lobby (they must have thought we were total idiots) where Jeff asked the Doorman just how the hell we get up to the Top. We were informed that the bar didn't open until 5 p.m. Ugh.

Insert Erica melt-down.

I had had it. My feet hurt and I just wanted to go back to the hotel and no stupid legendary bar was worth all of the fuss and frustration. We headed back to the car where I changed shoes and tried to calm myself. We decided to wait it out because having a martini at the Top of the Mark was something Jeff had always wanted to do and blah, blah, blah... So, we hung out at that park you can see in the picture above in front of that beautiful church. Apparently this is where the neighborhood brings its doggies and there is nothing in the world that raises my spirits more than watching a bunch of dogs frolic and sniff and bark. An old yellow Lab named Petunia latched on to Jeffery and INSISTED he throw her slobbery Frisbee until her owner yelled at her to stop bugging him.

Five o'clock rolled around and we headed back to the Top of the Mark were miraculously the elevators decided to get over their petulance and allowed us to ascend. This place is pretty stunning. The views are spectacular and I can see the appeal. One Charcuterie plate and a Manhattan later all was right with the world. Dogs, pork and bourbon a happy Erica make.