California - the deYoung

So the plan was to meet up in San Francisco this summer. Leslie has been in her new condo for three years and I hadn't seen it, and my Dad wanted to visit his sister as well. So we all went off for an early July vacation in San Francisco. This was a really special occasion as this is one of our families favorite places. As usual we had a plan and a schedule -- ah the advantages of a tour guide sister!

We decided to get the museum going out of the way early. So it was off to Golden Gate park and the deYoung museum.

The exhibit we were headed for was a showing of dresses - haute courtier- that belonged to Nan Kempner. Originally from San Francisco she married well and spent a great deal of energy collecting clothing. Mostly from the 1970-1990 period. In a way it was the Reagan years re-visited.

How someone with so much money and time could collect such ugly jewlery I don't know, but she did.



No museum trip is worth it's admission button without lunch. So we did lunch at the museum cafeteria.

Melon-bean soup was our choice. I'm not quite sure where the melon was, but the name was enticing.

I highly recommend museum cafe's. They nearly always have a decent turkey sandwich and soup and beat the hot dog stand outside.

The deYoung has an addition, a tower shown left. We took the elevators to the top and viewed the city. As towers go it was a good one, no swaying in the the wind or with the earth.



From the tower we had a birds eye view of the new building going up next door. As with all things California it's going to be quite "green." The roof will be alive and help to heat and cool the building.

I'm glad to know that soddies are big in the golden state.

The bumps on the domes on the roof are solar panels and will help to power the building.





The view from the tower was a great way to start our visit to San Francisco off.