Haight-Ashbury - San Francisco, CA

Home to the hippie counterculture and the 'Summer of Love,' Haight-Ashbury is a district within San Francisco, known for its vintage stores, record shops, coffee houses, nearby Victorian homes... and its affinity for cannabis.

The music and magic of the 60s remains everywhere. The street is vibrant and colorful, filled with murals and painted buildings.

There is plenty of shopping to be done in Haight-Ashbury. There was designer and vintage clothes galore - pricy, but above all, I definitely was out of suitcase space. looked most forward to Amoeba Records, America's largest independent record store. The San Francisco location opened in 1997 and is housed in a former bowling alley. If you're looking for a particular album, you'll definitely find it here. They also sell CDs, cassettes, DVDs and lots of music memorabilia from vintage concert t-shirts to coffee mugs.

Another favorite was Loved to Death, featured on OdditiesL San Francisco. No photography is allowed inside the store, which sells taxidermy, jewelry made from animals bones and insects, art prints, macabre house decor and many other items we would love to have scooped up but would have been difficult to fly across the country back home!

Haight-Ashbury is weird and wonderful, most definitely worth a stop if you find yourself in San Francisco. It is close to Golden Gate Park, so there is a lot to do nearby. Here are a few more shots from that day:

We left our hearts in San Francisco - but don't YOU leave before an upvote or comment! And thanks for following along. In the next installment, we get a little bird-brained in Bodega Bay. Stay tuned!