San Francisco - III

For our last day in San Fran, we "slept in" which is anything after 630a.  We caught the morning ferry and headed back to the city.  This was a different experience because we had never taken the ferry with all the commuters going to work before.  It was just a bit more crowded.  We arrived in SF hoping to get on a cable car since we hadn't done that yet.  We had to be at our Alcatraz ferry at 1p.  We took the tram up to Fisherman's Wharf and had In-N-Out for lunch, just to say we did.  It was so crowded even though we got there at 11a.  We sat outside which wasn't too bad since it was warm.

I did Marley's hair differently, and she wanted a picture of it.

After lunch the girls wanted to stop and shop for sunglasses.  This took what felt like FOREVER.  They had a deal going on, so Kaelyn bought three pairs, and Rory bought one.  Rory is a spender, so she's already out of all the money she had for this trip.  :( 

These are her patriotic glasses.  You can't tell, but they have flags on the lenses.

These are her "wear everyday" normal pair.

And a pair of funky to round it out.  I did her hair too in case you didn't notice.

Marley and Logan got little crab magnets at the sungalsses store. I can't remember their names, but they're like bobble-legs, not heads.  

We got to the ferry with time to spare.  This ferry had nicer seating than our Marin ferry.  Otherwise it was the same.  When arriving at Alcatraz, they have everyone walk to listen to an "orientation."  Don't go where the signs say not to and such like that.  They were really pushing the history to make sure people knew this wasn't just a prison for all that time, but I think most people were there for the prison part.  We explored a bit on our own, and then shuffled into a line to see the cells.  You can't see the cells without taking the audio tour.  That means you have to wear a headset that goes over your head and rests on your ears; a headset that millions of people before you have worn; a headset that probably hasn't been cleaned once through those millions of visitors.  I had some anxiety, but everyone else was doing it so...Once getting the headset, we walked up the stairs and pressed the start button at the red audio tour sign.  Apparently some of our family members are impatient and started theirs early, hence walking off and leaving their buddies who started on time.  Eventually Marley the buddy caught up to her other buddy.  Logan and Kaelyn were completely on sync.  Rory was a little behind me, but we all tried to pause at one point and get on the same time.  It didn't work.  Kevin, Marley, Kaelyn, and Logan were ahead of me and Rory, so we just rolled with it. It was an  interesting tour with officers and inmates voices telling stories on the audio.  

Waiting in line for the ferry.

We tried to take a pic of walking into the cellblock, but there were so many people.  We weren't able to take our time.

A part of the tour took us outside.

This is a pic of San Fran across the bay from Alcatraz.

Afterwards, since we knew everyone was ahead of us, Rory and I walked through the giftshop looking at some things and moved on thinking the others were waiting for us.  We walked down the path and eventually got back to the ferry line with no sight of anyone.  We tried to call and text Kevin and Kaelyn, but they didn't have service or didn't answer.  Finally they reached us and had been in the giftshop the whole time.  We waited for them and got in line for the ferry back.  

We tried to figure out whether we should try the cable car now with it being 430p or try to just go back to the park, eat dinner, do laundry, and get ready for our drive today.  We decided on heading back with some disappointed cable car missers.  We tried to jump the tram, but it took forever and then passed by us without stopping because it was full.

Some dancing while waiting for the tram.  In the above pic of Kaelyn and Marley, Marley said,"I'm the guy!"

We decided to walk it.  Right as we crossed the street to walk, another tram came and stopped.  Oh well.  We decided to speed walk to catch the 530p ferry.  We walked from Pier 33 to Pier 1 in 15 minutes.  We got there and waited in a long line to get on.  Luckily we made it.  

Shout out to Kevin.  As Marley's buddy, whenever she wanted to sit outside on the ferry and freeze, he went with her and didn't complain.  They spent most ferry rides outside, while the rest of us were warm, just because Marley wanted to be outside.  

Logan was cranky and wouldn't hold Kaelyn's hand, so she stuck her hand in his pocket.  That's a thing.  Whenever Kevin has a kid and needs his hands for something, he says,"pocket" and they know to put their hand in his pocket.  He started it with Rory, and it trickled down to Logan and Marley, and now Kaelyn too I guess.  

We did our buddy dances on the platform, got back to the park, and it was too late to do laundry.  We ate dinner, and Kevin and I walked up to the Trader Joe's to get some bottled water.  We all showered and went to bed.

Unfortunately, when we arrived back at the RV park, Logan noticed that he didn't have his iTouch.  It was in his short's pocket, and it wasn't there or in his bag.  Kevin went back to the ferry to ask for lost and found but was only given a number to call.  We've called those numbers and no one has turned in anything.  Logan cried for the pictures he had on it from him and Relic as a puppy when we first got him.  :(

The last pic of Logan's iTouch.  :(

Onto Mount Rushmore!

San Francisco - II

We woke up Tuesday with the plan to head to Muir Woods, Stinson Beach, and then back into downtown San Fran.  It seemed simple enough.  Our path to Muir Woods took us through this quaint little town with narrow roads and sharp turns.  Then we got to the road going into Muir Woods.  Kevin says it was the most stressful part of the trip for him because there were no guard rails, the road was so narrow, he had to watch the back end of the RV from crashing into the rocks, he had his whole family, and the cliff.  Did I mention it was all downhill too?  He was in 1st gear the whole time.  

This was all I could take of pics because I had my eyes closed and was praying.  There seems to be a lot of that on this trip!  We kept seeing signs that reservations were required.  We had no idea what that meant and no means to turn around.  We finally got to the entrance of Muir Woods, and apparently you needed reservations to park.  We had none, so we headed back to the RV park.  At this point I wasn't going to mention going to the beach because the parking attendant had just told Kevin that the way out was like the way in "hilly."  I felt better on the way out because there were guard rails at least.  We found a Trader Joe's right down the street from the RV Park, so I stocked up on some things.  We got back to the RV park, ate lunch, and headed back out to catch the ferry for San Fran.  
Now that we had done it the day before, we were like pros at this ferry business.  We even became acclimated to certain seats on the ferry.

We figured out the transportation passes, and we were on our way on our first tram.

I didn't get a picture of the tram from the outside.  :( Our stop was Pier 39!  Our first task was to get Rory and Kevin something to wear because Kevin didn't bring a sweatshirt, and Rory wanted that for her souvenir.  We found Rory a jacket that looks like a letter jacket, and Kevin got a San Fran sweatshirt.  On our way down the Pier, we came upon what we thought was a magic show that was about to begin.  The kids wanted to stop and watch.

Although this wasn't a regular magic show, this guy swallowed swords!

And scissors!

And balloons!

I could have done without his sexual innuendos.  He did warn that his show was full of them, but that the kids shouldn't understand them unless you were a bad parent.  :/

Next we went to see the seal lions.  There were so many, but I just liked this one guy, off to himself, soaking up some sun.  The others were crowded and making a ruckus.  

Rory found a place that served just cookie dough.  She was pretty excited.  $7 dollars later, her mouth started to break out, so she had to throw it away.  She was so disappointed.  This is her letter jacket!  It's missing a button, but she had already pulled the tags off.  We're hoping Nana can give it a quick fix.  Logan bought a bag of taffy, and Marley bought one of those huge swirly stick lollipops.  

Now that we were all sugared up, we headed to ride the cable car to Lombard St.  The line was pretty long, and we figured out that Lombard street was just five blocks away, so we decided to walk it.  BIG MISTAKE!  Our route to Lombard was ALL UPHILL.  It looked like we were walking horizontally because we were so bent over.

I tried to turn around and get a pic, but this was the best I could do.  See the water down there?  That's where we started!  Kaelyn was on the phone with Adam while we were trekking, and she said she had to go because she wasn't going to make it.  :)

Finally we reached the top.

We couldn't get any pics from the top because cars kept driving down, so we walked down the stairs.

We waited for some Asians to finish taking pictures.  One of them motioned for us to go ahead, so I gave him my phone. Dude took 15 pictures.  This was the best one.

After that, it was dinnertime.  Kevin wanted a sourdough clam chowder bowl from the Pier, Kaelyn and Logan wanted seafood of any kind, so Marley and Rory ended up with Aunt Annie's pretzels.  They ate as we walked back to Pier 39.  

At Chowders, Logan had a seafood platter which consisted of fried fish, shrimp, calamari, and fries.  Kaelyn had a crabmelt sandwich.  She loved it because one of the pieces tried to come out whole from the sandwich, and it ended up being a whole claw.  Kevin and I had our own little table.  

It was here that we decided to try and make it to the AIP place to get me some food.  We had to take the tram to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit = metro). We found our way while I called ahead to order.  The restaurant was right across from a BART stop, so we thought it would all work out well to make it back to the 725p ferry departure.  After all, we had two hours.

Standing room only on the tram to the BART station.  It was here that the buddy system failed.  Everyone got off the tram except Logan.  Kaelyn was screaming at him from one end of the tram, and Kevin from the other where he had gotten off.  Logan was just standing there drinking his drink, oblivious to all.  He finally got off and we headed to the BART.  Transportation in this city is RIDICULOUS.  If their machines worked half the time, they might have a fighting chance at getting people places.  Once we got BART tickets, we were on our way.

You can see we're still utilizing the buddy system.  Everyone is with their buddy at all times, or they're supposed to be.

We got to the stop, asked a BART lady, and she directed us since she had this same food for lunch that day.  We got the to restaurant and WAITED.  I asked on the phone for it to be ready to just pick up and go, and they assured me it would. We waited for a good 15 minutes at this place.  I felt bad since it was just for me.  I ordered two meals and four cookies.  Don't judge.  The cookies are made with almond flour, so I decided to try to reintroduce almonds.  There are some side effects, but nothing I can't handle while on this trip, so I can have cookies.  Because the food wasn't ready in a timely matter, they threw in two brownies.  We all know that brownies (cocoa) make me mean, and since we're driving for two days straight, I'll probably have them then.  Ha!

On the return trip, we found out we didn't load enough money for our passes, and when we tried to reload them, the machine would only allow two transactions on the same card.  I went to talk to the lady again, and she said it's a faulty system and handed us 5 passes (since adding money had worked once) to get back.  She didn't charge us and took our tickets that weren't enough money.  We headed back to try and get the 725p ferry.  We were all running to the dock, and we saw the ferry close the gate.  Bummer.  We sat in the shop building, and I ate my dinner hot at least.  That was nice, and it was good!  

General Tso's chicken with cauliflower rice.

Cookie!

While I was eating, the other buddy teams were practicing. On the walk to and from the RV Park to the ferry is a platform in the middle of the walkway.  I think it's there to maintain bike traffic.  Whatever it's purpose, from day one, we danced across it.  Since we were in buddy teams, we all made secret routines and plans for the platform.  Teams were practicing while I sat with Rory and ate.  We devised our own plan.

The next ferry after 725p was 810p.  It was fine.  

It was a little dark when we arrived at the platform.  Then the shows began.

Kaelyn and Logan were first.  They rocked it.  You'll probably have to turn your computer up all the way to hear what they're saying, but it was hilarious.

Up next Kevin and Marley

Rory and I went last.

We didn't take videos of our performances from yesterday which was sad.  All of us said we weren't going to do much, and then we did routines all over again.  Sorry we didn't get them on video for you.  They were all good!  

We got back to the RV Park, showered and crashed.  It was a great day in San Francisco!

San Francisco - I

Well, we finally arrived at the park.  We passed a pool on the way in, so the kids got excited.  I wanted to just relax a second, get some laundry done, and things cleaned up.  They have a full blown laundromat here, so I got three loads of laundry going at once and put the kids in the pool.  The water was freezing, so Logan didn't last long.  Mars swam for a bit.  

Can we talk about how much I love this sign?  I want to get one for all matters.  For instance, keep everything the same except the last line, "shall not be allowed to enter..."  AMA (our co-op), my house, the park, the grocery store, WALMART, my presence

It would be fantastic!

After swimming and laundry were done, we ventured to the ferry.  Our whole trip was to get the 3-day passes to take the transportation around San Fran, hopefully for cheaper with passes.  We walked a short distance to the ferry.

Unfortunately Kevin forgot his wallet.  I had mine, but I had trouble activating the card we were going to use, so I never had it done.  I ended up calling the bank and holding for 15 minutes to figure out all was fine. We bought ferry passes and headed out.  

We chose outside seating, and then we took off.  Gradually, my seat started getting a bit of spray, so Kevin switched with me.  He said he wouldn't sit there though because it was too wet.  Then everyone started going inside because they were getting drenched.  We followed.  It was much better inside and even better downstairs on the ferry.

Apparently she didn't want her picture taken.

Neither did she.

This was downstairs and how wet it was only on this side of the boat.

We searched everywhere for the place to buy the passes.  Unfortunately they were already closed.  I wanted the Bay Bridge for the backdrop of a picture.  I tried to take a selfie, and Kaelyn said I should just ask someone to take our pic.  I told her I didn't want to do that because what if they stole my phone.  While I was setting up the selfie, a young gentleman with an accent asked if we wanted him to take our pic.  I actually said, "Ok, but are you going to take my phone?"  I don't think he understood me, but he laughed.  Marley says he said, "Maybe."  Then the kids wanted a goofy picture, and the first thing Kaelyn and Mars thought off was acting like they were falling into the water.  

We ended with dinner at a sandwich place and ice cream/cheesecake.  

Today we're off to Muir Woods, Stinson Beach, and San Francisco again.  We found an AIP restaurant!  I think we're going to try and make it there for dinner for me at least.  I don't know what the others are having yet.  I'm going to stock up on desserts for take out.  :) WHATEVER WORKS at this point!  Oh, I didn't tell you, I forgot half the food I had frozen for me for this trip.  Souls in Purgatory are making it to Heaven left and right from this trip!