Saturday, April 13, 2013 - Fly to San Francisco

Woke up bright and early, spent the day packing and preparing, giving final instructions to our hosts for taking care of the animals, then headed off to the airport. The flight was scheduled for 4:40, but by the time we reached the airport, that had been delayed about a half hour. Then it was delayed again, and again. By the time we took off, it was 6:45, more than a two hour delay. It turned out to have nothing to do with the weather, instead it had to do with the San Francisco airport being short a runway, and flights were being held at the point of origin until they could schedule their arrival! I had hoped to reach SF before the sun went down, or at least just as it was doing so, but by the time we arrived we were incredibly late. We grabbed a cab to the hotel, which was the Sir Francis Drake downtown, and it was almost midnight by the time we arrived. Unfortunately, the desk hadn't held a room for us (I thought I had left instructions for the catering person to do that, but I didn't follow up), and the hotel was nearly sold out, so we were stuck with a tiny little room on the third floor that was so small, we had to climb over our suitcase to get to the bathroom! Clearly the old servants quarters or something, it definitely had the feel of "steerage." They've promised to move us tomorrow, but I hate having to spend the day waiting to move, then moving. It really cuts into the "rest" day we had planned, but we can't possibly stay in this cramped little room for a week! We ran into some friends (who we're scheduled to work with in the latter part of the week) in the lobby at 12:15 a.m. (there flight was late as well), said hellos and goodnights, then headed back up to our room to try to get some sleep. Bed is hard as a rock!!