We had to get up at 2am today to be ready for our 3am shuttle to Dulles Airport. The bag check-in at the airport seemed to be a bit of a rabble. When you check-in the bags, they give them back to you! We had to wheel the bags around the corner and an unofficial looking TSA guy finally took them off us. Must make sense to them I suppose. We flew across from Washington DC to San Francisco on United Airlines flight 567.

Had the only real hiccup of the trip so far on arrival in San Francisco (6 July). Checked into our planned hotel at Civic Center but checked out again 2 hours later. Hotel itself was OK but the location was really seedy. Didn't feel comfortable walking down the street as it was full of drunk homeless people... Not a very good first impression.

Thankfully we fell on our feet and found a much more suitable hotel on Fisherman's Wharf which is the main tourist hub here. We even have a great view of the bay looking straight out to Alcatraz. We enjoyed dinner at Joe's Crab Shack which we can also see from the window.