5 Things We Learned in San Francisco

5 Things We Learned in San Francisco

#5-

You can't always assume that a person dressed like a women is actually a women.

#4-

Modest actually is hottest during mid-summer in San Francisco.

It apparently is not in the Atlanta airport.

#3-
From a local- Ride in the front of the subway near the driver because sketchy things happen in the back.

#2-
If a seagull is squawking at you, it means you are too close.

#1-

Never underestimate the power of a good getaway weekend and quality one-on-one time with the hubstey. It's a blessing for your marriage and a blessing for your parenting. 

San Francisco- Pt. 4

Our last full day in Cali was totally our favorite.

Sunday morning, we woke up, grabbed breakfast at the Happy Days Diner, then headed to Hertz to pick up our rental car and head down Highway 1.

So just FYI, there aren't a ton of gas stations in the city of San Francisco. Several right outside the city, but not too many when you are trying to get out of the city. We survived and didn't run out of gas, but you feel kind of vulnerable to be almost out when you don't know where the next station is. Just saying.

Anywho...

Our first stop (after the gas station), on our way down the beautiful highway was at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

We rocked the wooden roller coaster.

I loved the spinny ride.

Brian won a stuffed puppy from EA and I.

And we rode a super old carousel.

It was sooo much fun.

From there, we simply enjoyed the amazing beauty of God's creation.
I mean seriously.
This was the view from our lunch spot.

I forced Brian to pull over every time there were cows cause I really want a pic of a cow to hang in my house somewhere.

These two guys had prime real estate.

We stopped at a state park to see the redwoods. Wow. Such tall trees.

On our way back to San Fran we pulled over at a beach to put our feet in the water.
It was so verrry cold.

This was Brian's first time in the Pacific.
He's a water woosy, so I say it was cold, he realllly thought it was cold.

 We grabbed dinner at a place called Burger. I bet you can't guess what they served...
They were sooo tasty. Mine had guacamole, which sounds kind of weird but was totally yum.

We headed home pretty early Monday morning. It was a little sad to leave such a beautiful city, but awesome to see our sweet girl when we got home.

It was a fabulous trip! If you get a chance to go to San Francisco, I highly recommend it- it's such a blast!

San Francisco- Pt. 3

Saturday was our anniversary!

We were up pretty early Saturday morning to get a head start on the day-

We started at the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building. This thing was amazing. There were literally hundreds of vendors selling fresh everything... grapes, cherries, apples, peaches, tomatoes... and flowers. Oh the flowers.

 After the market, we jumped a streetcar, made our way to a cable car, and went to the Cable Car Museum. It was pretty cool to see how they ran together- these machines actually run the cables throughout the city, in one building.

 Then, we went to Chinatown. We might as well have been in China. We were certainly the minority. 

 We ran by City Lights Bookstore, which wasn't really our speed, then found a lunch spot in Chinatown. I chose Yee's Restaurant because there was a menu in English AND Chinese on the window. Brian order tomato and beef noodles.

I ordered Yee's Noodles. I was hoping it was meatless. Instead, it had a variety of different seafoods in it. 

I don't actually like seafood. But the noodles were delish!

 While we were in Chinatown, we also hit the San Francisco Fortune Cookie Company. It was a little shop that was about 15x7 feet and made fortune cookies right there in front of you. We got the try them right off the press, before they were even folded. 

I'm not going to lie, warm fortune cookies are pretty tasty.

After Chinatown, we road the bus to Haight-Ashbury, which was a little town that got started in the 60's and never really got out of the 60's. Once again, not really our style, but we were glad we stopped by. 

We left Haight-Ashbury and headed to Alamo Squre- home of "The Painted Ladies" houses which are featured in the opening of Full House. We sang the theme song a lot that day.

Next, we enjoyed our anniversary dinner at The Franciscan in Fisherman's Wharf. Sadly, no pics, but Brian got crab legs and I got chicken fettuccine. 

Close to the restaurant was one of my favorite things in San Francisco- an old fashioned quarter arcade. There were tons of fun games that only cost .25-.50 a piece. We totally hit up the ski ball, whack-a-mole, a several pin ball machines. 

After playing a few games, we wrapped up the day with two single scoop ice cream cones at the Ghirardelli Ice Cream Shop. Tres yummy.

San Francisco- Pt. 2

Friday morning we woke up early and rented our bikes from Bay City Bikes. We road them to the Alcatraz Pier, parked and locked them up, then headed to do the Alcatraz Tour. 

I honestly wasn't really looking forward to the tour of this former penitentiary, but it ended up being very interesting. Did you know that three guys escaped and were never caught?  

The city seriously had the biggest seagulls I have ever seen. 

I do not like seagulls. 

  

After the tour, we rode the ferry back, hopped on our bikes, and headed to the Golden Gate Bridge.  

We took the 8 mi. trek across the bridge to Sausalito. I was pretty pumped that most of the ride from the bridge was downhill... because most of the ride to the bridge was up hill. Well, that's not exactly true, but it totally felt like it.

We had delicious fish and chips, then caught the ferry back to San Francisco. 

As a side note, I seriously considered selling my engineer husband to the ferry company. It was the most unorganized mess of a bike ferry I have ever seen. And I know, I have only seen one, but still. There were probably 150-200 people on the ferry with bikes, so basically we just all leaned our bikes against each other, then had a free for all trying to get our bikes when we stopped. And did I mention that we loaded and parked our bikes downstairs on the ferry, then docked upstairs? Which meant we had to dig our bikes from the trenches, then push the bike up the stairs to get off. Which was especially hard with me holding the bike brake the whole way up. *Oy.* But we survived... and it was far better than riding our bikes back due to sore bottoms and thighs. 

Once we got back, we returned the bikes, rested at the hotel for a few mins, then headed back out to take in Lumbard Street- "The Crookedest Street in the World."

View from the top. 

 We rode the cable car back down the hill, then grabbed dinner at local pizza place.

Then once again, went to bed way early.

We are so old.

San Francisco- Pt. 1

As I mentioned before, Brian and I had the fabulous opportunity to go to San Francisco for our 5 year anniversary. EA spent a little time with both sets of grandparents leaving me and Brian to explore to city on our own.

Folks, it was fabulous.
It was a wonderful 64* pretty much the whole time we were there. It was a bit foggy but brightened up most days.

We got there on Thursday. Our flight landed about lunchtime so we jumped on the Bart and road it to the bus station, then hopped a street car to the hotel. I'm not going to lie- it was kind of exhausting running around the city with our luggage, but was totally worth it. We checked into the hotel, then spent some time meandering around Fisherman's Wharf.

We hit Pier 39- I was a bit disappointed... normally there are hundred of sealions on these docks, but apparently late June/ early July is mating season, so they are off.... mating. These two guys stuck around for our viewing pleasure though.
Greatly appreciated.

The left-handed store. Everything was made for a lefties (which I am!)- lefty notebooks, coffee mugs, and, my favorite, scissors!  They were super comfy on my left hand and I now have scissor envy to know how good the right handers of the world have it.

Telegraph Hill

Dinner at Boudin- Brian had tomato soup in a bread bowl, I had grilled cheese. We ate by this cozy fireplace overlooking Fisherman's Wharf.

Ghirardelli Square.  They give sample chocolate when you walk in the store. Score.

Because our bodies were a little off from the time change and the 3 AM wake-up call, we hit the sack early to prepare for the next day.

Wordless Wednesday

Highway 1, California- The Bixby Bridge