Fun in San Francisco

 (Super long post, just for the memory book!)

We had a great time on our little get away.  We stayed super busy and tried to do as much as we could in our 5 days. To do that it meant non stop sight seeing and adventures!

Our Hotel...
We stayed in a placed called Hotel California. I knew nothing about it but it was in a good area and was on the smaller side, which we like. We also got free breakfast every morning. You can't beat that!  Something also fun was every night they had a wine and cheese happy hour (free). That was a nice plus. I"m not a wine person.I tried it one night and couldn't even put but 2-3 sips down and that was torture. They also gave a free tequila shot upon checking in!!

They day we got there was the 4th of July. We had a full day so after we got cable car passes, we headed down to the warf. It was a sight to see for the first time! We walked around, people watched, toured an amusement came museum and watched the boats.  (these were all at union square, they were having an outdoor concert)

 

 It was a beautiful, sunny, clear day. My friend Leslie had just left San Fran and luckily she told us to pick up some sunscreen and we did right away. Even though it never got above 70 the sun was intense and you would burn easily. We both got a little red this day, but not bad! Thanks Leslie! That night we came back and watched a big firework show right off the pier. They had 3 fireworks going off 3 different piers and it was great. We left early to get out in time and beat the rush. Took a cab home, good idea!

Thursday, our first full day was very, very busy! After breakfast we headed back down to the warf because we had our first tour. A cable car tour. We rode around bigger places and got to see how the rich and richer life in San Fran. These houses were millions, and millions of $$.

We even to to see all the rolling hills...

Can you believe people walk these hills every day all the time???  Parking is awful in the city so most walk and ride bikes.  Our tour took us over the bridge and then back over for some photo ops. It was soooo windy up here!! My scarf was blowing all around.

It was beautiful but we only had 10 minutes so we had to hurry! We did also get to see dolphins swimming right by the bridge. It was pretty neat!

After our tour we had lunch at Boudins (Yum) and walked around and shopped. Our next tour was that afternoon. Kelly and I rode Segways!!

It was soooooo much fun. I was a total retard at first and could not get it. I said I needed segway for dummies. To operate the segway you lean forward to go forward, but when it came to turning I kept wanting to lean and you CANT do that. Luckily we had about 30 min of practice (in a parking lot) with the segway people then we went out, straight into heavy traffic. Our ride was about a full hour to hour and 1/2.  I was scared to death at first but there were about 11 of us total and it was really fun. Our guide was really young and so nice. She took us to fun places all over and even snapped all of our pictures. Segway is the way to go! We're trying to figure out how we can do it here in Plano ;) After our tour we went to the famous Pier 39 where the sea lions hang out. We never saw but 2-3 max.

 On our way home we did Lombard street. The crookedest street around!! No cable car around so we had to walk and I was soooo tired!  Cars/Taxis wait sometimes 2 hours to do the drive down. We chose to walk it. Luckily, going down!

We were sooo tired after this. It had been a long day. I think I went to bed at 9:00 this night!

Friday was our FULL day. We planned a day trip to Monterey Bay/Carmel/Pebble Beach golf coarse. The ride was long but fun and pretty.  We stopped in a cute little town of only 350 people called Davenport. Our bus stopped at a cute little bakery. Lots of buses stop b/c it's a good central point and they have restrooms. Our driver told us to get a snack so the bakery had so many yummy goodies. We chose to each get a bag of chips, we split a dt coke and the bill was $9! 2 bags chips, drink, $9! They make a fortune there!!

                           It was cold! I had only 2 shirts underneath and a hoodie and scarf!

Finally we made it to the beautiful Monterey Bay. It was picturesque. The colors were all so pretty. One of K's college roommates lives close by and works in town so we met him for lunch! He's so lucky to live and work in this beautiful place. It was unreal!

Every were were cute little flower pots and the most amazing colors of flowers. We didn't do cannery row where they canned things but that was fine. We enjoyed our lunch and meeting with Eric. Kelly hadn't seen him for close to 5 years!
Next we traveled back to the bus and around town then to Pebble Beach golf coarse.

We got to watch seals here just swimming around. Amazing!  They were too fast and far away for a good picture.

We made lots of good scenic stops and every place was prettier than the first!

(Kelly was getting tired of me asking people to take our picture!!)

We did get to stop at the first hole of the golf coarse where they have the shops and it was so pretty. I didn't take any pics. Our next and last stop was Carmel. We were only there for 1 hour and it was just shopping and didn't interest me at all. No pictures here either! Very expensive houses and very expensive shops. It was a great but long day. We were ready to get off the bus. Our bus driver was this older man that was a great story teller. He talked NON STOP the ENTIRE 10 hour day. I pretty much tuned him out after awhile and so did everyone else. At one point I looked up and Kelly was the ONLY one paying attention and laughing at his jokes. (we sat up front). Everyone was asleep or not paying attention. It was hysterical. The driver finally said "Sorry for all my talking. If you don't like history then you've been bored straight!" NO doubt!!! This night we got back so late and we were starving. We found a cute little diner in Union square and we split a double decker club sandwich. So good!

Saturday we had the morning free so headed out via taxi to the Painted Lady Houses. These are the cute houses they always show on tv. It's in the famous park, Alamo Square. It was so pretty and such a nice park. Everyone had dogs all over the city. I loved it. Big dogs, little dogs, they were all great dogs off the leash and I said I wanted to come back in my next life as a dog living in San Francisco! They have it good!

Aren't the houses so cute? Just a funny fact. they are called the Painted Ladies- those 8-10 houses and they are famous. Well some houses close by are trying to start "the Painted Gentlemen" houses. :) It was really quite warm this day so we came back to the hotel and put on short sleeves! We ate lunch and later were picked up at our hotel for our next day trip. This was just a half day trip. We went over the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito and to the National Park Muir Woods. First was the park. It was beautiful. Very peaceful and just so pretty every where you walked. The trails went on for miles but we only had 1 hour so we were careful where we walked to not got lost! Some people in on our bus did get lost and were 20 minutes late. Our driver was giving them 5 more minutes then he was going to leave them. Yikes!

 The first few above where pics I took on the bus of Sausalito. So pretty!

It was chilly outside because we were high on a little mountain and it was all shaded. We were glad to have jackets :) Getting to this place was not easy. We had to go up this winding tiny, tiny road that was so narrow. And we were on a big bus. I thought I might die. Cliffs were right next to us the whole way. Going down wasn't much better!

Next was time in Sausalito. It's a cute little town with fancy shopping again but at least it was right on the water. We spent time watching the boats.

 We walked the streets (very crowded!) Then found an ice cream store that was also a bar. Our perfect match :) We were only here 1 hour then back home. We had the driver drop us off earlier in town and ate at the Stinking Rose. It was sooo yummy! We then walked around and found China Town. It's a must to see and so fun.

China Town was full of fun shops (all selling the same stuff again pretty much!). I bought a cute beach hat and we got Gracie some fun trinkets. We took a cable car home and crashed after another long day. 

Sunday: Our last day in the city. We decided to go back down to Fisherman's Warf after breakfast and do a boat ride. We hadn't done this yet. There are ton and tons of boats you can catch that take you out and around the bay. It was very chilly and foggy but still fun. 

We had head sets that told  you all the important facts around the bay. It was a fun touristy thing to do!  You couldn't have paid me to be on this kind of boat below!

 We did go around Alcatraz. We didn't do the tour. We couldn't find any tickets available before we left but we did get to see it up close.

Our boat brought us back to the marina and we found a good place for lunch. We ate at a place called Tarantino's. We got to sit up high and watch all the people walking below. Fun stuff.

We did some souvenir shopping and each got some tshirts and junk for Gracie. Tshirts were so cheap, around $5-9. I got a really cute sweatshirt for $15! We made it back to hotel and got into a taxi to check out Golden Gate Park...

This was a neat area and so, so pretty! It was fun walking around and people watching here. At the park, I was so surprised at all the homeless people. I said to Kelly, "what is it, a homeless convention?" Really homeless people were all over the city. They begged and begged for $ but we didn't give any. That night we went to fisherman's warf one last time and ate some yummy shrimp at a cute place on the water. We were so sad our trip was over. The next day we had a long day of delays and we didn't get back to our house until almost 11:00 at night. We were so ready to be home and see our girl!  I'll do a little post later about what the kids did while we were gone :)