For President's Day weekend we went down to San Francisco and saw lots of cool stuff in the Bay Area. Here's a run-down of our activities.
SATURDAY
Bay Area Discovery Center children's museum in Sausalito located in Fort Baker by the Golden Gate Bridge. Ross used a Groupon there and the Groupon included admission and $20 to the gift shop. It was awesome! Our kids know we NEVER buy toys at gift shops. This time it was the perfect way to end the fun. We've been to plenty of children's museums. The charm of this one was all the exhibits were spread out -- inside different buildings or even outside in different areas. I think they used former military buildings from Fort Baker.).
USS Hornet aircraft carrier museum in Alameda. Another Groupon here. It was really cool to explore all levels of this ship. If it wasn't dark or chained off, you could go there. We had fun exploring around and got a family picture showing both the ship and the city on the flight deck).
Sat in one hour traffic on Bay Bridge toll. We understand city traffic but weren't planning on the toll line being so bad; dinner at KFC/Taco Bell (we had to drive past our hotel two exits); checked into
Homewood Suites in Brisbane and went swimming in the pool. No one wanted to get out of the pool and we love the "suite" part because we can put the kids to bed in the bedroom, close the door, and then stay up a little later to watch a movie or in our case, send Ross on a triple A battery search for an insulin pump after 10pm. I always carry an extra one--too bad it wasn't any good.
SUNDAY
Church at 9am in Bay Ward. The building is downtown. Catherine S.'s parents are the senior missionary couple in that ward, but were attending a different ward that day. We enjoyed the talks, and the kids sat really well and loved their notebooks and four-color pens. In the chapel there were some high windows, and it was really cool to look up and out and see the tall buildings all around while sitting in church.
Palace of the Fine Arts. This is an outdoor monument surrounded by water and a lovely garden. It was constructed 100 years ago for a world exposition. Three Japanese couples LOVED our family--I felt like a celebrity. They wanted to talk to us, some snapped pictures of our family, and one got her picture with me in front of our stroller. We walked around and fed the ducks. We were happy we found a nice kind-of-hidden parking area behind the building.
Muir Woods redwood forest. We have a National Parks annual pass so we thought it would be perfect to see redwoods only 13 miles of downtown, but the traffic was horrible and when we got to the gate there was a sign that read "Free Day". I didn't realize half of San Francisco was going to see the redwood trees too. I made peanut butter sandwiches in the car while Ross drove stop-and-go. The honey was kind of thick but it finally worked. Gravity and centrifugal force were funny to watch as the honey came out slowly at a weird angle as Ross drove windy bends and curves down to the woods. Both parking lots were full and no shuttle was running so we had the option of driving past and finding parking along the road. We ended up driving over a mile and finally turned around. There was no way we could hike back that far with the kids. We asked the park ranger at the second gate about the chance of parking in the lot (because it seemed like they were letting in people here and there and the ranger noticed all the kids through the window and he waved us in. We circled the lot a few times and were annoyed when any person would come in the "Do Not Enter" gate and drive the wrong direction to park in front of all the people in line. Ross actually got out of the car at one point to kindly express his distaste for not following the signs to another driver. We finally circled and told James, the park ranger, that people were going in the wrong way and taking all the parking. He said he would close the gate and to circle back around because he would let us in. We did (which took about 10 minutes) and then he remembered us and waved us in. He even came over to ask us how we liked the park afterwards. He's the nicest park ranger we've met!
Fort Point military grounds at the base on the south side of the Golden Gate Bridge. We parked right along a rocky beach and the kids loved watching the waves CRASH! again and again. Allen loved watching the surfers too. Pretty brave to surf right there with all the rocks.
Yoda Fountain in front of the LucasFilms building in the Presidio. If you put your face up to the glass you can see the Darth Vader and Boba Fett costumes in cases.
Mount Davidson view of the city. We noticed a coyote warning and climbed to the top and saw two coyotes along the way.
James Browning Federal Courthouse. This is where the Ninth Circuit meets in San Francisco. Talk about fancy! Wow. They don't make them like that anymore. We peaked in several of the courtrooms and saw where his chambers works when they are in town. Good thing Ross has a badge to get in after hours. The security guard didn't mind at all when our loud crew entered the building. The courthouse isn't located in the best part of town and we pulled up right in front of the building at a meter at about 6:00 at night. I saw several people pass by, a few homeless people around, and a man dressed as a woman told me he liked my dress. Creepy!.
MONDAY
We drove past Candlestick Park on the way to
Golden Gate Park. We went to the
Japanese Tea Garden (the steep round bridge was amazing! The Garden was free before ten. Ross found street parking and parked our car on Nancy Pelosi Dr.), the
California Academy of Sciences (expensive museum and probably our least favorite thing all day, but the Rainforest and Earthquake exhibits were memorable. Emma loved climbing up on the turtle herself and Abby was brave enough to pet a snake. The Living Roof exhibit reminded me of a date Ross and I went on when we walked on the top of the conference center),
Stow Lake and Strawberry Hill Island (we walked over the bridge and had a picnic lunch near a waterfall and a pagoda and watched pedalboats passing--It was picturesque. Jane kept saying, "It's a picnic day!"),
Koret Children's Quarter Playground complete with a concrete slide (we brought boxes just for sliding. It was funny seeing Allen go down in our apple juice box. He liked that he fit inside the box. The twins each wanted a turn to go down with Ross. Never seen the movie
Pursuit of Happyness but this is the playground Will Smith is at in the movie. I had to Google the name of the park to spell it right and the info about the movie came up with it), and
Lands End (ruins of old baths right along the cliffs and beach. The sun was starting to set and Emma loved playing with her shadow which made the rest of us notice our shadows. As we watched the sun set I took the girls back to the van, unloaded the stroller and got everyone tucked in with a snack while Ross took Allen and Abby down and hiked around the ruins. When Ross got back he said they found a cave and the hike was like our Mount Lassen hike (steep and kind of dangerous and not realistic with three little girls. The view of them from above looked cool. Reminded me of the old stone castle grounds in
Karate Kid 2.) On the way home all the kids fell asleep easily. We got home about 8:30pm.
San Francisco is such a unique city, with the ocean to the west and the bay to the north and east, steep streets, cool architecture, and the diverse people about. It was really fun attending church right in the city. I love just looking out the car window (remembering our days living in Chicago) as we drove through all different parts of the area. It's really hard to find parking and practical places to eat (this is when we are glad we brought a small cooler and a full box of groceries), but I'm happy for a husband who read up on things and planned it all out. My job was the packing. Our favorite things tend to be the ones "off the beaten path". As far as sites we saw, we hardly spent anything, but you have to know where to go, like a local. Lots to do around there for free. We had wanted to see my cousin at Stanford or our friend Layna, but neither meeting worked. We'll be back though.
